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Quote: Cross your finger
You must have one heck of a finger!
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing?
In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine!
Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
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My first experience was a programming class on AppleII probably in the early 80s (1982-ishy ?? )
I remember the class room, it was a bright room, everything smelled new.
And also on Sinclair zx80 at school (but again, I don't remember much).
I'd rather be phishing!
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BASIC on a GE time-sharing teletype with punched paper tape for program storage in 1966.
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Me, too. 110 baud dial-up on paper tape.
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COBOL, gawd help me. On a ICL 1900 running George 3, on punch cards, with operators who actively (and for good reason) hated students. You'd get your deck back with bits of lettuce stuck to them, half of someone else's program upside down, and a core dump two feet thick.
The lecherer (for he was indeed a lecherous sod) allowed three attempts to get your code working: three deck submissions. After that, you lost 10% of available points for each run.
Following term was FORTRAN and a breath of fresh air.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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The same guy worked the input/output window at my college. 1979, SPSS programs on punch cards, submitted in shoeboxes. You got your cards back and a stack of green bar printouts. Syntax errors cost you the time to fix and resubmit. Logic errors got you thrown out of the basement.
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"ICL 1900 running George 3, on punch cards"
Didn't they name a king after that OS? At least that's what a school maths club asked as part of my first programming experiences using hand punched cards, pressing out each chad with a stylus on an IBM Port-a-Punch, using every second column, and posting the Algol (IIRC) code off to Leeds University (c 1969) (I think it was George 4 by then - A better king?).
The punch, post, compile, run, printout cycle too a whole week! We learnt to check our code and the cards. Primes up to 1000, integer Pythagorean triangles, etc. Great stuff.
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Mine was with BASIC somewhere at the end of the 80ies with a Spectrum 128k
10 print "hello world"
20 goto 10
Happiness of seeing it worked was fast replaced for... "wtf do I now to stop it? If I break it my brother will kill me"
(I was 8 or 9 back then)
Then... pity. There was a long break of many years of nothing. Some time later, I got strictly prohibited to touch my brother's computer ever again (the endless loop was pretty harmless after all   ) I learnt the lesson... don't let you get caught (still had some incognito experiences with a Pentium I -75 Hz IIRC- and Win 3.11).
I officially started again short before college, got back with my own Pentium II (250 Hz IIRC), Win95 and Turbo-C, derive and similars, then Borland C++...
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
modified 31-Oct-19 9:22am.
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Oh, we used to dream of having 128K! 
Speccy 48K for me, in the early 80s. (Once we'd been back to the store to get a box that wasn't empty, that is.)
Combined with a set of Input Magazine[^]. (Ignore the publication years on that site; they were all 84-85.)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Quote: Speccy 48K for me
Me too. It was the start of a fascinating journey into The Abyss.
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1979
- 4 kB RAM. Yes, four!
- R6502 1 Mhz 8-bit processor (same as Apple used in the Apple][)
- 20 character alphanumeric LED display (uppercase only)
I wrote a program in machine code (no assembler) to send and receive Morse-code; not for any real reason other than the challenge of processing in real time.
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My first serious program (after a number of trivial ones) was one to compute a Magic Square of odd dimension. This was in 1987 in FORTRAN IV on a DEC 10 Mainframe system. Since I needed blank paper to write down engineering college notes, I gave it an input of 101, printed it and got something like 20 or 25 pages or so of one-sided paper.
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1975 on the 31st May I wrote my first program in City & Guilds Mnemonic Code assembly language. It was fed through a teletype on punched tape via an acoustic coupler to an ICL 1900 at Manchester University (about 50 miles away).
It ran and produced the correct answer, first time!
That's when I knew I had to give up my Law career and become a lumberjack computer programmer!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Haha Amazing for those days.
Just wished that lumberjack wasn't struck through.
I like the idea of a lumberjack computer programmer.
Has a certain ring to it.
Reckon that JSOP would agree, except he doesn't like high heels on blokes.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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This one time, at band camp...
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1964: accounting machine program punched on mylar tape.
1965: IBM 1800, assembler. Some Fortran.
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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I miss Heathkit. I built a variable voltage and current power supply from a kit that I used for years.
1974: My first programming experience was on a PDP/11, punchtape storage, teletype, BASIC, 64K RAM, and mag tape drive that if it drew too much current would crash the entire computer.
1977: Second was a couple HP calculators, the first being an HP-25 - Wikipedia[^]
After highschool, I started programming on a Commodore PET. Onwards and upwards!
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My high school had a PDP/8 with two terminals but no tape drive, just the punch tape. I learned BASIC on it my senior year 1977/78. I had a PET, 64, and Amiga.
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Roland M Smith wrote: I had a PET, 64, and Amiga.
I somehow skipped the Amiga, going from PET and C64/ Vic20 to a dual floppy IBM PC.
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I miss Heathkit too. Build a lot of equipment for my HAM father.
First programming experience was Fortran on an IBM 1440 in High school. I miss the punch card confetti we threw at each other!
Then it was off to the Air Force and COBOL, where I learned BASIC on a friends Apple IIe, Star Trek anyone? We programed the game to go back in time if you went fast enough close to a star! Yes, we were geeks!
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It was the day after I got my C64 (Hanukkah 1984)... I just finished the book came with it without sleeping...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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I was going to mention I'm of the C64 generation, but it seems like you and I have started on the same thing. Only, on Xmas 1984, I was 12. I guess it's not a generation thing.
I can't make the same claim about the book however. Being a 12-year old French boy, it took me a lot longer to go through it.
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I was 12 at 1984 just like you...
My book was in Hungarian (I wasn't speaking about the books originally come with the C64 - they were gone when I got the machine, but about a book my father got with the machine)...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: I was 12 at 1984 just like you...
Sorry Kornfeld, I could've sworn I had read a message from yourself saying you were much older than that. Somehow I've associated that with your name... 
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