Hey, the What Do You Do for a Living thread got me thinking about this.
My first "computer" was a Timex Sinclair that I built from a kit. I also spent many hours painstakingly programming a Commodore Vic20 to display graphics and sound (and save them on that slooooow tape drive). My first "real" programming was in QBasic on a TRS-80 in high school. And as I said before, my first "dial in, on call" technology was a Compaq Lunchbox that I did IBM Mainframe support on for a manufacturing plant. Oh, and I took my first programming course in college with a Telex machine (I kid you not!) Getting a program listing on that crappy thermal paper was a pain in the butt.......
Tell us some stories, reminisce a little. Bring back some memories...
I don't think most people here would even know about an IBM 650 - magnetic drum memory. I also did trajectory computation on something called NORC that IBM made in the mid-50's, for NOL - Naval Ordnance Lab. I think NORC stood for something like Naval Ordnance Research Calculating machine ~sort of. I programmed it well after the time it was deemed to be the fastest computer in the world.
It read so-called green tape. It was not really green, it had an off color stripe on one side and was used a for high-speed paper tape reader. I think it got the name from the boxes it came in. Regular tape passed through a paper tape duplicator, creating the green tape.
That does remind me of the TDC (torpedo data computer) that they used for firing solutions in WW2. The military has always used the latest technology to help with the art of war.
Me too. I think my first hobby computers were the computers above. I remember programming "sprites" on the Commodore.
Before that, I used to program some survey instrumentation and plotting, CAD programing when I worked as a field engineer, but I can't remember what they were called at the moment.
Do programming early TI and HP calculators count as computers?
---------- Post updated at 16:18 ---------- Previous update was at 16:06 ----------
I just remember I also had one of the early Apple II computers in 1977.
Ok, based on the replies up to now, I'm definitely a youngster
The first computer I used was an Intel 8086, with a 8087 Co-Processor (both at 8MHz), running DOS off 2 5 1/2" floppies.
The first computer I owned was an Intel Pentium at 90 Mhz (with F0 0F bug). Originally with 32 MB RAM, a 2x CD-Drive, and a 14.4 Kbit modem, running MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.11, upgraded since to 64 MB RAM, a DVD drive, 100 MBit NIC, and running LFS. It still gets its occasional action if I want to test software against older libraries.
first computer I owned, was a VIC20, in the early 80ies (and afterwards really each box commodore ever produced), first 'Unix' machine was a pcs cadmus (CAD multi user) in the mid-80ies running MUNIX (and unfortunately I had to support them until 2004), first pc an IBM 8086, first computer I was earning money with was operating a brand new IBM System/370-XA in 1986.
My first was a Commodore PET, followed by some other Commodore, I think perhaps a 128. All hand me downs from father. Next came a Rainbow and then a VAXmate (father had moved to working for DEC). PC's or clones followed until college.
Like probably a lot of my generation, I grew up playing around with a Commodore 64. But it was pretty useless for anything except games. The real computer, an IBM PC kept in a locked room in the basement, was too expensive for them to dare letting me play with it, given my habit of dismantling everything I touched. (A habit I still have, fed regularly by my computer maintenance work. I'm just a lot better at putting things back together now. :D)
My first real computer was an IBM PC 80286-12 assembled from the detritus of old upgrades to the "main" computer. It had DOS, QBASIC, IBM Writing Assistant(anyone remember that?) and enough storage to hold thousands of handwritten programs. I continuously upgraded it all the way from grade school, through high school, and by the time I dropped out of college to pursue work experience it was a dual Opteron running Gentoo Linux.
Not for me.... .I wrote an entire geo-triangulation, distance and bearing (direction) program on the C64 (in Basic) that we used when we downloaded coordinates from our survey gear.
At the time, most small survey companies did not have these type of small computer programs and we won considerable business (back then) for having "advanced computing" capabilities.
Then, just like now, the younger generation is always finding new innovative ways to use the latest technology. Today, the C64 looks lame compared to modern computers, but back then, it was very cool and very useful for small business (or at least in our small land survey company).
We did finally port the code (well, "we" means me) to the TRS 80 because, as you say, the C64 not not an ideal business computer. However, I don't agree it was only good for games and useless otherwise... at least not for our young innovative land survey company..... we even had a fancy name that distinguished us from more traditional companies because we used small computers like the C64 and TRS 80, wrote our own software, and could therefore save our clients $$$.
The name of that legacy company was..... Microsurvey
We named it Microsurvey because we used "microcomputers"... and at the time, that was a very new and innovative term.
Very creative use of it. How did you get over the I/O hurdle? I never did find working instructions for saving BASIC programs to disk; lots that didn't work, but none that did, and none that even explained what they were even trying to do... It stymied me for years. It's only now, with access to the modern internet, that I've found out why files on the Commodore were so strange: Disk I/O was neither raw, nor handled by the BIOS, Commodore had it's own unique solution. Drives were their own self-contained computers that communicated with the C64 in a weird and proprietary mini-language that was passed to it from BASIC I/O statements nearly raw.
Honestly, I don't recall. We might have manually input the data, it was a long time ago.
For years, I saved a printout of the code and the results, but eventually tossed it along with old college text books and other stuff I stored for years and never used.
I now wish I have of scanned the old printout of the code, just for fun, so I could have posted it in this thread; but I have become one of those "if you don't use it in a year, toss it" person in my advancing age.
I also started with a Commodore 64 purchased with summer job money in 1984 or 85. I also have an answer for the "how did you get programs saved" question. I remember clearly getting copies of Commodore magazines or other sources of programs and typing them in by hand and saving the files, then doing "load <programname>" followed by "run". I don't think any way other than that or buying your programs on floppy disks or cassettes worked. Certainly nothing like downloading from the internet like you can do today.
As IBM FE in early 60s got to see all the old stuff still installed prior to the 1401s. Was supposed to go to 7080 school but cancelled at last minute and sent to fixing EAM stuff. Got to "penny a day" on a 1401 and hands on repair on some 1402s if it was card drive stuff. Amusing stuff was not paying attention to signing with penny a day, comparison for last day failed, the high speed 1403 probably went through 30 pages before I got it stopped.
First owned was 6800 SWTP starting with 1 K, ending with 6800 and 6809 mixed manufacturers, up to 48K and hard drives. Proud of hardware hacking a bitbanging serial port to make it SASI and driving up to 3 hard drives and 4 floppies on a WD controller. And the software hacks to patch in the drivers, most of which I wrote in assembler or machine language. Did the full TRS line as a leasing and service company with some basic programming for quick & dirty jobs, then transitioned into PC stuff when I finally saw the handwriting on the wall. Missed the MCA fiasco because the ISA stuff was still selling.
Jumped into a hardware problem when 3 other companies had failed to fix a machine, had to learn Xenix in the process, and ended up with a life consumed by SCO stuff.
Mine was Soviet-made POISK in the late 80`s...It is based around the 1810WM88 CPU a clone of the i8088. It has 4 slots for expansion carts like Floppy-Cart (in this case one could use CPM), Printer, Memory-Expansion (512k), HDD (MFM) controller, ROM-disk, EEPROM programming, RS-232/Centronics.
On long winter nights I still hear how it`s spinning the cassete with Basic on it...I miss that baby..
My neighbor died about a month ago and I was helping her sister clean out some stuff. She knew I was "into computers" as she says (she' in her 80's) and saved some stuff for me. I don't know if it even works but I now have an original IBM AT with all the manuals and a tiny monitor. They ran 12mhz didn't they and retailed for like 6k back in the day.......
