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Post by gwiz on Feb 26, 2007 10:11:22 GMT -4
I didn't come across a computer until I reached college. The high point was writing your own program and then running it on the only computer that the University had, a machine called Titan, as I recall, with it's own programming language, Titan Autocode.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Feb 26, 2007 11:16:14 GMT -4
My first introduction to computer programming was a BASIC class in high school, probably about 1975-76. In college I took a course in FORTRAN and had to write all my programs on punch cards. What a joy that was.
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Post by cameron on Feb 26, 2007 12:26:16 GMT -4
Someone mentioned CP/M he he i remember that. We had Research machines at school the government gave grants for computers but you had to spend it on British technology, Duh. My first computer at home was a Sinclair ZX80 Firmware: 3.25 MHz NEC 780-C CPU 4K ROM, 1K RAM Display: 24 lines x 32 character text display Monochrome only No sound I/O: Z80 bus, 250 baud cassette interface, RF television out Storage: External cassette recorder Then the ZX81 (which wasn't a lot better) a Sinclair Spectrum then an Apple euro-plus 2 and many others. I still have them all
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Post by nomuse on Feb 26, 2007 17:21:27 GMT -4
Still have my Z80-A "Kaypro," manuals and all. Last time I used it was maybe a decade ago, when I wired a hand-made relay board across the parallel port and made a BASIC-driven stepper-motor controller out of it.
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Feb 26, 2007 19:26:03 GMT -4
The first computer I used was actually a "light industrial robot" from Gerber Scientific Products, called a Signmaker. My mother bought one for the family sign shop. After that, she bought an Apple IIe and ran the company books on it for years. If you click the link, you'll see a picture of a Signmaker, probably a IVb which had minor improvements. The fonts were on cards, just an uncased circuit board with a handle riveted to one end. We traded them with other shops. If you look above the cluster of keys that are arranged in a cross, you see the infamous 13 character, one line display that the thing was programmed with. All layout was done with X-Y moves. Proofing was done by putting a pen in the plotter and "sketching" at thumbnail size. Sweet piece of machinery. Cuts slow but really accurate. Many of them are still running, but all the ones I've seen in the last 15 years have been connected to a Mac or a GSP-badged Windows PC as an output device only. Some are on their third owners, and they have no idea how to program the things.
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Post by bazbear on Feb 28, 2007 0:17:31 GMT -4
I believe the first computer I used was a TRS-80, circa 1980, owned by one of the people in the weekly wargaming/RPGing get-together I frequented. The first one I owned was a Commodore 64; I didn't own a "real" PC until I bought a used 486 (win95) machine in 1998.
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Post by hplasm on Feb 28, 2007 14:09:36 GMT -4
Algol. On a Teletype.
<shudders>...
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 28, 2007 14:26:09 GMT -4
Uphill in the snow both ways.
How about FORTRAN on the venerable IBM 029?
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Post by hplasm on Feb 28, 2007 14:30:04 GMT -4
Typists with muscular fingers!
And keyboards that went KLUNK and jumped when the keys were pressed. ;D
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 28, 2007 15:17:50 GMT -4
...and where Backspace was irrelevant.
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Post by scooter on Feb 28, 2007 16:21:19 GMT -4
Typists with muscular fingers! And keyboards that went KLUNK and jumped when the keys were pressed. ;D Haw!!, that would be my mom, bazillion wpm on the old mechanical Remington, dad got her an electric, and she couldn't do a damn thing with it! Sometimes, progress "isn't".
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Post by sts60 on Feb 28, 2007 16:53:11 GMT -4
Ah, yeah, the good old 029. I remember those days well. Yet I am but a mere pup compared to the senior guys here, one of whom still has some of his paper-tape programs from later on in his career.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 28, 2007 17:20:15 GMT -4
It took a lot of convincing to get my mom to give up her electric typewriter and use a computer... that was back when we had a Commodore 64 (and before that a Vic 20). The original blue screen (only it wasn't a bad thing like with Windows):
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Post by nomuse on Feb 28, 2007 17:26:36 GMT -4
Predates computers....my first gorgeous machine was a Correcting Selectric. Before that I was typing on a manual, then a Monkey-Ward portable electric with a broken carriage return spring replaced with rubber bands. The first "computer" I ever had my hands on was a wire-wrapped project board of discrete chips with eight toggle switches for entry and eight indicator lamps for output.
I also used to own a Captain Zilog comic book.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 28, 2007 17:32:00 GMT -4
I hope no one here has been around long enough to have used one of these.
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