[CoachKandSportsguy]

How computing all started for the masses

I remember using basic in the early 1970s in high school, along with one other program on a Digital PDP 8i computer, in my schools basement.

https://youtu.be/WYPNjSoDrqw

If you are old enough and geeky enough, you should recognize a few of these names.

[buzzy]

Hey, thanks. In 1968 I used GE Timeshare BASIC at an aerospace company. A year or so later, transitioned to Fortran on IBM machines. Been a geek ever since.

[kansasr]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

How computing all started for the masses

I remember using basic in the early 1970s in high school, along with one other program on a Digital PDP 8i computer, in my schools basement.

https://youtu.be/WYPNjSoDrqw

If you are old enough and geeky enough, you should recognize a few of these names.

At the 27 minute mark you'll meet The Villages own, BILL ZANI !

[biker1]

My first programming language was PL/C, a dialect of PL/I used at Cornell, on an IBM System 370 accessed via 029 punch cards in the early 70s. My first course was actually taught by Conway and Gries. PL/C is a strongly typed language that should encourage good programming practices. It also tried to correct typos during compilation, which can improve turnaround. I quickly moved to Fortran for useful work and still use it today when I need a quick answer via gfortran on an iMac. Used C for some stuff but mostly Fortran with OpenMP and the MPI library for parallel programming. Learned Pascal in graduate school (had to) but never did any real work with it. At one time I was pretty proficient with Z80 assembly.

Here is the definitive article on programmers and programming languages:

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal

Systems I used:

IBM System 370 (MVS)
IBM System 360/195 (MVS plus TSO)
Amdahl V6 (CMS)
NAS 9000 (MVS plus TSO)
DEC PDP11/34 (RSX11M)
DEC System10 (TOPS10)
CDC STAR 100 (VSOS)
CDC CYBER 203 (VSOS)
CDC CYBER 205 (VSOS)
Various CDC 60-bit scalar machines (NOS)
Cray X-MP (UNICOS)
Cray Y-MP (UNICOS)
Cray 2 (UNICOS)
Cray C90 (UNICOS)
Cray T90 (UNICOS)
Cray T3D (UNICOS and microkernel)
IBM SP2/pSeries Clusters - various flavors of POWER processors and interconnect fabrics (AIX)
SiCortex SC (Unix)
Thinking Machines CM-2 (Sun OS on front-end)
Intel and AMD based x86-64 Infiniband clusters, some with GPUs, from IBM, Linux Networx, Sun Microsystems, and SGI (Linux)

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

How computing all started for the masses

I remember using basic in the early 1970s in high school, along with one other program on a Digital PDP 8i computer, in my schools basement.

https://youtu.be/WYPNjSoDrqw

If you are old enough and geeky enough, you should recognize a few of these names.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

My first computer experience was in high school in 1978-79, my senior year. I got a C- in Algebra I and therefore wasn't allowed to take Algebra II. I'd gotten Cs in geometry, and mathematics just wasn't an interest to me. But I had to pass a math course in my senior year, in order to graduate. Computer programming sounded interesting. I was allowed to choose between COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, or Assembly. I picked BASIC because - basic = simple = more likely to pass.

We had teletype machines and amber-on-black monitors, dummy terminals hooked up to a pair of reel-to-reel refrigerator boxes in another room; a room with its own central air-conditioning unit, kept at 65° all year round. These computers ran all our school systems programs; attendance, grades, absences, teacher and student files, all cross-referenced.

Our first program, of course, was "Hello World." We didn't have punch cards, we had ticker tape. We had to be incredibly careful about folding our program so the reader wouldn't mistake a hole with a fold and ruin the whole thing. We also had to map out the entire program on paper first, with a template. I remember two of my programs. The first was a "make your own cheeseburger" program. Very simple - it asked you questions about ingredients, you'd say yes or no, and at the end it'd print out an ascii drawing of the resulting sandwich and the list of ingredients you selected.

The second program was a class project; a casino gambling day. My partner and I chose to do the roulette wheel. So we had to understand probability and statistics to plug in the correct odds and payouts for each number and color. To keep things from getting insane we allowed the player the option of selecting no more than 4 choices per play. "All black" plus "43" plus "1-15" plus "all even" - would be an option. It was a bear of a program to write but we learned SO much about mathematics, more than I'd learned in my junior and senior high school classes combined, up until then.

I only got a C in that class but it was passing and I was able to graduate and continue to college with merit credits in English and Writing.

Fast forward 20 years, and I decided to go back to college to take more programming courses. I went for Visual BASIC 6.0, C++, and advanced VB6.0 and advanced C++. Aced them all. Did nothing with it. But had a blast. Turned out that I actually learned something about mathematics back in high school, even though I didn't "get it" until 20 years later.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Stuff you learn which you are interested in, in high school, stays with you the rest of your life.

Been doing VBA, SQL and now python since I started with a Mac in 1982 with Multiplan, the predecessor to excel. Tried building lottery winning numbers histograms and wrote my own tax return programs as well.

All self taught from the high school introduction, college Dartmouth time sharing Basic and the Apple Macintosh

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by kansasr

At the 27 minute mark you'll meet The Villages own, BILL ZANI !

Wicked cool!

[tophcfa]

I took Basic programming my freshman year at UMASS back in the 7O’s. We had to store/load our coding on binary punch cards. I remember spilling a beer on my completed program assignment punch card and had to totally redo it from the beginning. My first computer, an IBM PC Jr., had to be booted up with the DOS operating system loaded each time with a floppy disc. Back then who could have imagined how powerful a phone could be, our phone hung on the wall and had a rotary dial.

[dtennent]

In high school, the closest I ever got to a computer was my slide rule. Still have it today. I learned BASIC and Fortran in the early 70s while in college using THE mainframe that the school had using cards. In grad school, I used Fortran to do some curve fitting for data sets.

When I joined corporate America, I had to plead for a terminal to hook up to the mainframe. Eventually, everyone got a terminal which allowed folks to email, etc. Spent too much time stealing passwords from folks and making changes to their login.com files. Usually resulted in lots of laughs but no serious damage ( well, maybe a few bruised egos) . Now I spend my time changing passwords regularly so someone doesn’t steal my personal info! How times have changed…

[ElDiabloJoe]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

... Tried building lottery winning numbers histograms and wrote my own tax return programs as well...

Welllllllll? C'mon, give 'em up E.F. Hutton, What are the highest probability winning lottery numbers?

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloJoe

Welllllllll? C'mon, give 'em up E.F. Hutton, What are the highest probability winning lottery numbers?

55 % of all lottery numbers drawn have adjacent numbers, like 5 and 6, or 44 and 45.

Randomness is clumpy, just like the randomness in the universe, millions of light years of empty space between solar systems, galaxies, etc. Its why people park cars next to yours in a parking lot with 15 open parking spaces nearby. Also to dent and scratch your car because of their lack of courtesy, but not relevant at the moment.

Within the last several years, I was playing a pair which hadn't been picked for awhile, 31/32 . . and it hit, and someone else won, but the trick is getting the other 4 numbers on the same line / picked (i have yet to master that trick!). . . and I didn't count on 33 to be picked as well, also adjacent for a triple . . .