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So you are saying the NSA only employs computer illiterates?
My guess is you have just made a powerful enemy in the States.
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Keith Barrow wrote: So you are saying the NSA only employs computer illiterates?
Of course it does!
Otherwise they would know too much  
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Whenever I want to write a letter to the NSA I just save the email in drafts. No need to send it.
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...you wrote your first program?
In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them.
This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000.
How about you?
Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. 
modified 31-Mar-14 10:58am.
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My first programming language was Pascal way back in the days. I remember writing my programs when i was about 5th grade eh the old Program p; Back then we had to use dos compiler and that alone was pretty scary for me and the things i was fighting was the . and ; after the end in the different cases. And don't forget mod and div i still call the c++ operators that way  . For 5th grader that was preety scary :P
Microsoft ... the only place where VARIANT_TRUE != true
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Argonia wrote: mod and div
Isn't that what they are called? At least I call them that since it is more related to mathematical terms.
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In english maybe, but i didn't know that back then.
After all programming is good for your brain it teaches you english better than the textbook. Noone can make me spell break or switch wrong 
Microsoft ... the only place where VARIANT_TRUE != true
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Define Computer Literacy.
When I wrote my first program I could plug the Commodore 64 into the TV, turn it on, get to the bit to type in the code and then run it.
There wasn't a lot else to do, I could also put the tapes for the games into the tape player to load and then start the games.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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Literacy as in knowing basic user operations before going to programming. For instance, knowing what left and right click is. I, for one, had no clue when I wrote programs for first few months.
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d@nish wrote: For instance, knowing what left and right click is.
There was no left and right click.
There was no mouse.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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There wasn't even a damn keyboard, half the time!
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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That was my point, the concept of computer literacy has changed over time as computers have evolved.
I could do everything I needed to with my C64, so I was Computer Literate, but I wasn't for the modern definition that was in the mind of the OP.
For those of you who started off shoveling coal into the things whilst someone else opened and closed the valves whilst a third operator carefully monitored the weasel levels the question makes even less sense.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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Certainly no screen - teletype only.
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One place I worked at - National Institute For Biological Standards and Controls, in the early eighties - had two "punch girls" who got a sheet of numbers from the biologists, punched them onto paper tape on an offline teletype, then used the screen based terminal to run them through the PDP 11. If there were any mistakes, the paper tape was carefully edited to fix it with a knife and sticky tape and it was retried. When the run was complete, the paper tape went back to the biologist who binned it. 
Took me months to get permission to teach them to plug the teletype into the PDP11 and forgo the paper tape - with a box on the submission sheet saying "I want the tape!"
Then about twenty minutes to get them actual terminals, a week later - since they threatened to go on strike unless they did!
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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At school we would often find that the paper tape would tangle as it was feeding into the reader on the ASR33 (no hopper to contain the tape) so we would clip the tape into the reader then lead the tape across the room and open a window and drop the tape out - the computer room was on the 3rd floor - so that it wasn't all coiled up.
As it fed out of the reader (low speed 110 baud phone line meant this was a tedious process) we would roll it back up by hand and store the tapes in pipe tobacco tins (conveniently, the computer science teacher smoked a pipe).
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And as you hand fed the tape back into a roll you got paper cuts between your thumb and index finger!
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Oh yes - initially. You soon learnt how to roll it without getting the cuts.
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...until you hit a join and it shaved your fingers...
And the Mylar versions were worse: stronger, stiffer and sharper.
Would you believe I think I still have a tape repair tool in the attic?
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Click? I wrote my first program on a Teletype creating a punched paper tape. It was done that way because it cost too much to develop it while connected to the timesharing service via an acoustic coupler. I think we had the high speed 300 baud version.
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Yes, those there the good ol' days 
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
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Same method - but on a ZX Spectrum 16K
Ger
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Same here... only it was an Atari 400. I had a few programs written to audio tape that are lost to the ages. Probably taped over with White Lion or Def Leppard 
So I was very computer illiterate - the personal computer at that time would have been maybe a Heathkit that you built from the ground up, but that was not my level of dedication.
First program? I remember staying up late getting my name to march around the screen in different ways. Good times.
Good times *sigh*
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Nice musical references!
Ed Bouras wrote: White Lion or Def Leppard
I did mine on a TI-99/4a. It was great until the cassette interface/modem quit working. I could still write BASIC programs to solve physics and math homework problems...I just couldn't save them...and I couldn't create save points in the Scott Adam's Adventure games. SAV GAM 
Damn good times!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Heh. Of course those was my musically misguided years... before I discovered the awesomeness of Rush!
I think there are a few Canadian CP'ers here who would agree with that assessment
I think my neighbor had a TI-99 that we used to play Tunnels of DoomClickety[] on. Loved that game!
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Yeah I had NO idea.
PDP-8 at school in the late 70s. I got to "10 print <something awful="" about="" the="" vice="" principal="">\n20 goto 10" pretty quickly.
The big reveal was adding the ';' character to the inside of the string which would suppress the crlf (which, on the wide-carriage screenless terminal really was "carriage return, line feed".
It's all been downhill from there.
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