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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday January 04 2018, @08:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the a-little-bit-at-a-time? dept.

With the recent brouhaha about vulnerabilities in many relatively recent processors, I got to thinking back to the time when I first started programming. Back then, things seemed so much simpler and much more straightforward.

To start off the new year, I thought it might be interesting to find out how people got their start in programming.

My first exposure to programming was by means of a Teletype over a dialup line using an acoustical coupler to a PDP-8 computer running TSS/8 and which had 24 KB of RAM. At the time, Star Trek ToS was on the air, and I thought this was the new, big thing. I was quickly disappointed by it not measuring up to anything like what I saw on TV, but I saw it had promise. Started with BASIC (and FOCAL). Later on was exposed to a PDP-11 running RSTS/E and programmed in BASIC+ as well as some Pascal.

As for owning a computer, the first one I bought was an OSI[*] Challenger 4P with a whopping 4KB of RAM!

From those humble beginnings, I ate up everything I could lay my hands on and later worked for a wide variety of companies that ranged in size from major internationals to tiny startups. Even had a hand in a project for Formula 1!

So, my fellow Soylentils, how did you get started programming? Where has it taken you?

[*] One day when my girlfriend came over and saw the OSI logo on my computer her eyes got huge! You see, The Six Million Dollar Man was on television at that time, and she suddenly suspected I was connected to the "Office of Scientific Intelligence"!


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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday January 05 2018, @03:16PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 05 2018, @03:16PM (#618340) Journal

    As a kid, my Dad...instituted an hour each weekend for...me.... I... wanted to learn BASIC. Learn I did, and now am at least moderately employed doing just that.

    Okay. Sounds kind of nice...

    The long take away is, Screw you Dad!

    But I don't get how you go from one to the other. That would not have been my takeaway had you not spelled it out.

    I was drunk with power and money in the years I should have been finishing college.

    I was drunk with something during those years too--finally got a degree in 2010 after starting college in 1987--but it wasn't power nor money.

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