Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robert Miles on May 4, 2011 at 5:49pm

I also started with FORTRAN/cards. I never saw the computer I used in those days, but it was probably an IBM 360 over in the next county.

Used many BBS sites before I started using the internet.

Thinking of switching to Windows 7 once I get past some problems retrieving old data.

Have never used Linux.

Permalink Reply by Jareb on June 1, 2011 at 6:28pm

Ah, yes, the Fortran cards. Submit fifty cards for an assignment, wait a week and find out it would not compile because of missing space on the first card. I so loved having my own computer when I built my own Apple ][, back in 1981.

Now I am about to try to teach some Basic to a grade four class that knows more about the internet than I do, but whose biggest challenge is that they don't understand English very well.

Meanwhile, at home in the evenings I am struggling with PIC devices and learning C++.

Permalink Reply by jrtpup on June 1, 2011 at 6:33pm

I don't think any of those grade fours would appreciate sitting at a monitor for hours playing Adventure :) My first fortran project was a monopoly game LOL

Permalink Reply by Robert Miles on June 1, 2011 at 7:32pm

My university was at least faster about getting the resulting printouts back - often the next day.

My first three home computers were various Altair 8800 models, all purchased used.

Grade 4 sounds like an age when they'd like some of the computer games I've read about that have some effect in preventing obesity and hopefully diabetes as well - those that involve quite a bit of movement of the players. Some of the Wii games are suitable, but don't offer any opportunity for users to do any programming to change them.

I'm already trying to learn C and planning to learn C++ as well, so that I can try helping some of the BOINC projects I'm interested in. Possibly CUDA or OpenCL later.


If you're looking for free Basic compilers, you might want to
evaluate these:

http://www.freebasic.net/

http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/basic.shtml

http://www.freebyte.com/programming/basic/

http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/basic.html

http://justbasic.com/

http://www.freebasiccompiler.com/

http://www.freebyte.com/programming/compilers/envelop.html

http://www.compilers.net/Dir/Free/Compilers/Basic.htm

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fbc/


Or, if interpreters seem more suitable, these:

http://galacticelectronics.com/NewBasic.HTML

http://www.freeware-guide.com/dir/softdev/basic.html

http://www.fuerve.com/works/BASIC/

http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/

http://www.yabasic.de/

Permalink Reply by Jareb on June 1, 2011 at 8:07pm

Thanks. I have been using the justbasic compiler, maybe I'll check out some of the others later.

My first computer was a used KIM single board, with a teletype, and a tape recorder to store and load programs. It used the 6502 microprocessor, the same as the Apple][ I later built. I spent many fun, happy hours entering code in hex, and then debugging it using a keypad and seven-segment readouts. It had a total of 2K RAM, but it could play chess!

Meanwhile back at school in the present I am told I should teach my class about DOS. That should be fun.

Permalink Reply by jrtpup on June 1, 2011 at 8:56pm

Jareb, are you teaching a history class? LOL

Permalink Reply by Robert Miles on June 1, 2011 at 10:02pm

Which DOS - the IBM mainframe DOS, or the DOS for PCs? I've used both.

Permalink Reply by Jareb on June 22, 2011 at 4:48am

Actually I am teaching DOS structure a bit, but I'm using the command line interface of Windows XP, which is what our computers run here.

Mostly I just want my grade four students to realize how much easier a GUI makes tasks, rather than having to spell everything out correctly. Their computer skills are much better than their English, so just navigating around directories is hard for them.

Permalink Reply by Tord on July 9, 2011 at 8:10am

I started out in 82 with a C64 writing all kinds in BASIC :) Then came the Amiga (what a wonderful machine) and the Atari, but it wasn't until 89 i think I got bitten by the code bug (not the faulty bug) and bought a 386 machine. I used turbo pascal, a bit assembly (MASM i think it was?!), VB, and dived into C. Then the spiral just went boom - coding is my way of life; I even made it past COBOL for mainframes (lol). What language I use depends on what I create; If it's web; JS (jQuery)/CSS/HTML(5)/PHP (I love the codeigniter framework), mobile (Java/LUA), desktop (C#/Java/Python) (on pure OS X apps i use Objective-C).

What really fascinates me is AI/Machine learning/ Multi-Agent Systems.

Do others here also get a kick of wathcing re-runs of "Computer Chronicles"? :) And yes OS/2 was a good OS in it's time!

Permalink Reply by BadMoonT2 on July 9, 2011 at 8:53am

My first computer was an Amiga, agreed it was a great machine.

Permalink Reply by solo79 on August 17, 2011 at 2:53pm

I am a mcse certified, and basically a gadget girl. I love any techie gadget and everyone comes to me for computer, to photography.....

Permalink Reply by KateR on March 5, 2012 at 2:55pm

Started out as desktop support. Worked my way up to a mid-level Systems Admin. I work mainly with biotech servers and applications, but also am now getting into Enterprise-level VMWare/VSphere.

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