FORTRAN IV, coded using punched cards, executed on an IBM 360 mainframe, circa 1965. With luck, I got two or three compiles accomplished each evening. It took about a week to get each programming assignment finished. You punched your code using a keypunch machine, added some system control cards, wrapped the stack with a rubber band and dropped it in a hopper. Eventually the system's operator fed your cards into a card reader, and returned them to you wrapped in one or more sheets of green/white paper containing your program's results. The work was done for an electrical engineering course titled "Numerical Methods and FORTRAN Programming". Since then, I've never had a job where I didn't have access to "personal computing" power!
Donald S. Szarkowicz, Ph.D. E-mail: dszarkow@hotmail.com