Started in 1980 programming on punch cards which were taken once a week to the mainframe at LAUSD headquarters. Next it was on to the Commodore PET and then onto a Atari 800. The rest is history.
How Long Have You Been Using Computers
Started by astral, 2008-10-01 17:53
#52
unomi
Senior Member Posted 2008-10-06 21:55:35
I had one of the first Spectrum Computers. That would have been 1980? Well do I remember the days of Manic Miner and the hours of fun spent playing that. From the computer magazines we spent hour after hour typing in the games program listings only to fine they - or we - had made an error with the data so the program did not work!! Fun days. Played Scuba Diver or whatever it was called for hours on end, then the typing in of programs and getting those cool programming books with cartoon characters, can still remember the image of the 'stack'. the zx80 was so popular there would be radio shows about them where they between interviews etc, they would play programs thru the radio that you could record on a tape player!! So I guess I grew up in the age of am-fi. I still think that is quite cool. Later I got my hands on what I would still say is the best computer ever made, the Amiga, superb mix of hardware innovation and unix'y OS. There is an entire alternate history where the Amiga won out and the world is a better place. Never really saw the point of DOS or win3.1 (which was the first I saw). I do remember going insane while learning OpenBSD, those were fun times. ASCII Daemon screensaver coming on while stumped on something seemingly intractable, evil wizards. Also, I still have my hp42s 
#53
Freddie_fly
Senior Member Posted 2008-10-07 23:43:58
I started on Texas Instruments 980 computers with paper punch and 9inch tape as program loaders. remember getting the first TI PPC at work and trying to figure it out.
The first machine I personally owned was an Amstrad 6128 around 1985, followed by a 286 from an old UK company called Viglen (believe they may be still around now). In 1980 we also had the TI 770 terminal onboard our ship. all TI offices worldwide had them and we had a system called IMS (internal messaging service) which used the Transit satellite, with it we could send messages to any TI facility worldwide (email before it hit the mainstream). I bet TI wish they had patented that. Freddie #54
simonphuket
Advanced Member Posted 2009-01-10 13:46:49
Wow, I thought I had been around for a while, but am a newbie compared to some of you guys. Respect
. My first program on punchcards must have been around 1974 or so? Just fun on my parents IBM terminal. My first job as a programmer was in 1986, IBM mainframes. Worked for Big Blue for several years, cool stuff at the time. Lots of assembler programming, extensions to the OS... Then, as the career progressed, work became more and more boring, and finally ended up here.Anyone knows if the wonderfull Big Irons from IBM are much used in LOS? Back home the real mainframe specialist are sought after, not many around anymore. #55
JetsetBkk
The JesterBkk Posted 2009-01-11 21:21:10
...Lots of assembler programming... as the career progressed, work became more and more boring, and finally ended up here... 
#56
G54
Super Member Posted 2009-01-13 18:05:43
Doh!!! Posted already.
I need a break 
Edited by G54, 2009-01-13 18:07:03. #57
G54
Super Member Posted 2009-01-13 18:11:34
I had one of the first Spectrum Computers. That would have been 1980? Well do I remember the days of Manic Miner and the hours of fun spent playing that. From the computer magazines we spent hour after hour typing in the games program listings only to fine they - or we - had made an error with the data so the program did not work!! Fun days. Played Scuba Diver or whatever it was called for hours on end, then the typing in of programs and getting those cool programming books with cartoon characters, can still remember the image of the 'stack'. the zx80 was so popular there would be radio shows about them where they between interviews etc, they would play programs thru the radio that you could record on a tape player!! So I guess I grew up in the age of am-fi. I still think that is quite cool. Later I got my hands on what I would still say is the best computer ever made, the Amiga, superb mix of hardware innovation and unix'y OS. There is an entire alternate history where the Amiga won out and the world is a better place. Never really saw the point of DOS or win3.1 (which was the first I saw). I do remember going insane while learning OpenBSD, those were fun times. ASCII Daemon screensaver coming on while stumped on something seemingly intractable, evil wizards. Also, I still have my hp42s Did you play 'Jaguar' on the Amiga? Two people at the same time racing each other around those circuits. I remember my son and his friends all coming round as we all had great fun with that game. When UT came out on the PC, the house was full again. Days of dial up, high ping rates and then we got broadband with NTL and kicked a lot of ass against those poor suckers still on dial-up. Great days. #58
bdenner
Super Member Posted 2009-01-13 18:26:21
Haven't read all the posts here but my 1st exposure to computers was in the RAAF in the 60s's where they may not have been electronic but pneumatic ---------
Does that qualify??? #59
tominchaam
Senior Member Posted 2009-01-13 18:38:55
I started with an Apple back in 1984. Added 10MB to the original 1 MB and felt I would never run out of capacity. The money I spent on service might have been more than what I paid for the PC. But I loved it and stayed with the same brand for quite some years.
Interesting to see the majority here have used computers for more than 20 years. Would be interesting as well to see a simular poll regarding the age of the members on this forum - my guess is most are over 50, maybe even over 60. Edited by tominchaam, 2009-01-13 18:40:23. #60
sniffdog
Super Member Posted 2009-01-13 18:57:21
1980 ... Tandy TRS-80 ....then Commodore 64, Atari ST and PC ....
The TRS-80 came standard with 4KB of memory .... I expanded to 16KB. The price .... probably the same as a whole PC nowadays. Edited by sniffdog, 2009-01-13 18:58:23. #61
Naam
Star Member Posted 2009-01-13 18:58:09
since 1984. had of course computers in the company i ran but no bloody idea how to handle one.
#62
Lopburi99
Super Member Posted 2009-01-13 19:27:43
Since 1966 at Michigan State University when I started my computer science program, using a Control Data (CDC) 3600 programming in Fortran IV with punched cards and getting one compile/execution every day !! ANd being thrilled if there were keypunch errors !!
#63
Gary A
Titanium Member Posted 2009-01-13 19:45:15
It was in the early 80's. I bought one of the IBM compatibles from Radio Shack. It had a massive 10 megabyte hard drive. I bought Lotus 123 and used the spread sheet to build a business program. It took a while but when finished, it worked great. The US Internal Revenue Service was impressed with my daily records and monthly summaries. I was lucky, I was only audited that one time.
#64
chiang mai
Ex Member Posted 2009-01-13 20:03:56
1967 operating a Honeywell 1200 the size of my living room spending endless hours watching tape sorts, how daft was that! But I loved punched cards and became expert at correcting errors on them by sticking the chads back into mispunched holes with a wet finger - I still remember the Holerith code! 1969 and a Univac 41 the size of my house with disks (fastrands) the size of small cars and a 100mb capacity. Moving on in time: my boss at the bank dumped IBM's first commercial PC on my desk in 1978 and said, here, decide what use this might be to the bank in the future. As I recall I wrote a very bland report that didn't even come close to setting out the true potential.
#65
bdenner
Super Member Posted 2009-01-13 20:04:18
OK, let me expand on this:-
Forgetting the armed services and then the years I spent in seismic oil exploration with GSI, a subsidiary of Texas Instruments where I spent many months studying their sciences in Dallas Tx. during the 1980’s, some 28 years down the line I’m still a two finger typist but by the fu#k I can fix, repair or ‘nigger’ rig them. When your stuck out in a desert with millions of dollars at stake, that’s your bread and butter -- it held me in good stead up to retirement inc. my last few years with Chevron here in the Gulf of Thailand. And then again, there was a time for 5 years where I was with a company out of Massachusetts called Foxboro, they based their early technology on a DEC PDP 11, now there’s a dinosaur complete with paper tape streamers and a 16mb storage facility that weighs in about 25kgs. I could go on but my own personal computer was a Commador 64. BTW I'm Australian just seems that I spent most of my time tied up with US companies. Edited by bdenner, 2009-01-13 20:20:11. #66
simonphuket
Advanced Member Posted 2009-01-13 21:53:04
Interesting to see the majority here have used computers for more than 20 years. Would be interesting as well to see a simular poll regarding the age of the members on this forum - my guess is most are over 50, maybe even over 60. 
#67
G54
Super Member Posted 2009-01-14 02:06:46
Interesting to see the majority here have used computers for more than 20 years. Would be interesting as well to see a simular poll regarding the age of the members on this forum - my guess is most are over 50, maybe even over 60. Maybe we are twisted? 
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