Well, I started with a Vic-20...GO 64
Well, I started with a Vic-20...GO 64
I had an Osborne Executive, the first portable computer, 28 pounds, 4” orange screen, and hand carried it through the airport. LOLGO 64
CoCo! My first computer too. Storage system was the Sears cassette player, just fast forward until you got to the counter where your program was written. So much fun, kicked off 40+ years of programming. I really wanted the Amiga, but never pulled the trigger. The good old days of innovation. Now we've got 40 years of PCs. Yawn.I learned to program on a TRS-80 Color Computer, then the C128, then I moved on to an Amiga which blew me away. Finally, after cutting grass for two summers, I could afford a US Robotics 9600 HST modem and WOW! BBS's couldn't get any faster.
VAX/VMS! Now you got my attention. Those indeed where the days...Ah yes, the time spent debugging, Commodore PETs, cassette tapes, floppys, punch cards, FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBOL...good times.
I remember when we got a VAX VMS system at school, and they stopped using punch cards. I can remember the sight of punch cards going out a 10th story window...and it was happening all over campus. I'd bet, if you looked hard enough, you'd still find some laying around, in that town...
Mine was a Commodore 64Soapbox:
My first computer was a Commodore 128.
That was my first computer. Connected to a 70's vintage TV. It had no storage. When you turned it off, whatever you had programmed into the memory was simply gone. Next time you turned it on, you had to use the built in version of BASIC to program something. Mine had a grand total of 1K of memory.I realize I am dating myself, but does anyone but me remember the Timex Sinclair 1000, with its 1 or 2 KB? Sold for $100. Them were the early days of home computers.
Oh come on….IBM mainframes, punchcards, TRS80’s….that’s nothing. I was there the first time we rubbed 2 Commodore 64’s together and created fire!!Me to. Started my home computing with a Commodore 64, and ran Basic and a bootlegged copy of Microsoft MultiPlan on it using a modded dongle (Statute of Limitations have hopefully run out!)
Started computing years earlier in 1971 with the mainframe IBM 360 using Fortran IV and punch cards at the University I attended, studying Aerospace Engineering.
Ok I'll admit it. Digital Equipment Corp PDP-8. Wrote real time data acquisition programs for laboratory equipment in octal machine code. Entered the program via toggle switches on the front panel. Surprisingly, I can still get insurance for my RV6.Someone mentioned the operating system CPM. I remember back in the early 80s frequently seeing locally a car with the license plates: RUN CPM.
I always wondered what happened to that guy, and what he's running now.
We've got that in common, I worked in the Computer Services department at the college I attended during by second year. One of the projects I was responsible for was tapping a terminal into a punch block so we could watch what trouble a certain student was getting into on his terminal in the lab. Called it Operation Fat Boy - sure couldn't do that now - I don't think we ever managed to catch him hacking.In the mid 80’s I wired Digital VT220 terminals and ‘Rainbow’ computers to the mainframe while a student at Baylor (I worked in the IT department part time to qualify for some financial aid).
Remember the programs you could find in the old PC Magazine written in Basic, that could send a print job to the dot matrix printer to make it "sing" with different notes?dot matrix printer, monochrome monitor...
I still have an original Mac and it still works fine. Ran across some extra memory so I opened it up. It turns out that the designers signed the inside of the case! Pretty cool...I had an Apple II+, 48k. Got it with my wife’s school teacher discount for ”only” $1800. . Programmed stuff from Nibble magazine to display on my 10” B&W TV.
Exactly my sentiments, keep up the good work DougI have never read so much bellyaching about the changes DR implemented on his site he has been somehow amazingly been keeping afloat because so few users of the site can pay a measly 25$ per year. When he posts the end of year tally on the meager donations he receives I really get a bellyache. So put on your big boy pants , “ donate” 25$ or more and keep on learning, building, sharing, selling, buying, posting to this site which has helped so many RV’ers.
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Boy does that 0.1" perf board take me back to my early days in ham radio - when I should have been busting my gonads in anatomy and pharmacology! I think Ten-Tec still uses boards like that
THANKS to DR, Bill and others for the "new" forum SW. I'm still finding my way around. I could care less about badges or trophies..........
My first Computer
I built my first computer using wire wrap and an RCA 1802, no OS and 256 bytes of memory. It could flash lights and play "music"! I think I ordered the parts from a small distributor named Digi-Key.
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Punch cards with IBM 370. 300 baud modem/teletype with paper tape to access VAX. Part of team that implemented UNIX OS on PDP 11/04 with 4k of ram.
I programmed with ALGOL, SNOBOL, LISP, C, Fortran and Basic while earning my EE/CS double major.
First job was designing a solid state floppy replacement using 92k bubble memories and assembly language programming of TMS9900 processor, used for a seismic data real time processing machine. I was fascinated watching a TI-99 manufacturing line while working for TI.
I was employee 641 at then startup Compaq Computer and was one of a handful of designers for Compaq’s first Deskpro. I wrote the assembly language code for the AT compatible 8042 keyboard controller. I still have engineering prototype #2 of the Portable 386, which I used while designing the DeskPro 486.
Regards,
Oh ... HAM and autopatch at 4800bps with YModem-G ... what a great way to share software!Boy does that 0.1" perf board take me back to my early days in ham radio - when I should have been busting my gonads in anatomy and pharmacology! I think Ten-Tec still uses boards like that
I learned assembly on the Amiga (making demos). I missed the early Linux versions ... joined the Navy in 1990 and priorities shifted, but I'm a hard core Linux guy now.Heathkit built by a teacher in 1978 (cp/m?), paper tape.
TRS80 (the one that was only a keyoard, we had to add everything else).
PDP-11 in 1982 with teletype terminal.
IBM (we had an XT!) in 1984
VAX/VMS (1983?)
Loads of UNIX/Solaris/Linux 0.99 (patch level ?? on 50 floppies)
Z-80 assembler
Could go on, but you've already moved on, I imagine.
Cheers!
Mike
I owned an Amiga. It was ahead of it's time. I'm also a big Linux fan, but probably not "hard core". I installed it on a dinasaur Vista machine and it's my shop PC. It has manual, plans, music, etc. It went from 30 minutes to boot up to 3 minutes and runs like a new computer. Love Linux.I learned assembly on the Amiga (making demos). I missed the early Linux versions ... joined the Navy in 1990 and priorities shifted, but I'm a hard core Linux guy now.
That was why the first thing you did after punching up all the program cards was to draw a line diagonally across the top of the stack - ask me how I know.And you haven't lived until you dropped a box of unverified punch cards.
So ... since we're laying it out there ... I was in the Navy and was assigned temporary duty while waiting for a school and they figured out I knew something about computers so immediately assigned me to work in the computer division. One day they were working on the halon system in the computer room, where the mainframe was, and took the clear plastic box off the push button, which just so happens to be right next to a similarly shaped light's off button that I regularly used ...And you haven't lived until you dropped a box of unverified punch cards.
I’ll bet a lot of folks needed a change of pants!So ... since we're laying it out there ... I was in the Navy and was assigned temporary duty while waiting for a school and they figured out I knew something about computers so immediately assigned me to work in the computer division. One day they were working on the halon system in the computer room, where the mainframe was, and took the clear plastic box off the push button, which just so happens to be right next to a similarly shaped light's off button that I regularly used ...
Could that be about the same time they were reporting the hole in the ozone layer was getting larger?So ... since we're laying it out there ... I was in the Navy and was assigned temporary duty while waiting for a school and they figured out I knew something about computers so immediately assigned me to work in the computer division. One day they were working on the halon system in the computer room, where the mainframe was, and took the clear plastic box off the push button, which just so happens to be right next to a similarly shaped light's off button that I regularly used ...
Heck, I remember 8 inch floppies!And remember those 5 1/4 inch floppy disks?
I guess you couldn't really blame her - he had a Trans Am!The best thing about punch cards were the chips and making it snow in the car of the guy that stole my girlfriend. I’m Not sure he ever got all of them out of his Trans Am.
Load *,8,1GO 64
Used those on a Bausch and Lomb CAD system in the early 80s.Heck, I remember 8 inch floppies!