Hello Bonnie and the rest of the people on this thread,
My memory is perfectly clear on this topic of my exposure to computer program. I was born on 1947 November 17 and so in September of 1970 when I entered Computer Technology at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology I was 22 and several months old. At that time, I clearly remember using bundles of punch cards on an IBM 1800 mainframe and waiting 24 hours to pick up newsprint of the results. I also remember writing a program for a tape sort and watching the tape drives move as the tape sort was executed. A little while later SAIT acquired a Hewlett Packard 2100 minicomputer, and I remembered the joy of writing an assembler program to solve the square root of a number using a version of Newton's method and writing it to be called by a Fortran program on that same computer. I also remember stepping through a program step by step using a step button on the front of the computer to debug a program, using the lights to indicate the register contents in binary. I have forgotten which register was indicated by the lights on the front, but that is the only fuzziness of my memory. I have now forgotten the exact format of a floating point number on the HP 2100. But I remember knowing it at the time I was debugging the program. After being away completely from computers from 1976 on I missed completely the development of the personal computer until quite recently, and thus except for a little basic knowledge I was just as much a beginner with my first personal computer as the average person when I got a second hand computer from a friend in exchange for an old programmable calculator. The main reason that it took me from 1970 to 1976 to get a two year diploma was that I was suffering from schizophrenia and bombed out on three major courses. I took two years off to work and pay off my student loan and save up for the remainder of my computer technology diploma. I was employed for two months as a computer operator, but the shift work triggered my schizophrenia, and I never got employed again as either a computer operator or as a computer programmer. I considered going back to SAIT in Computer Technology, but found out that computers had changed so much that my old diploma did not even give me credit for most of my first year courses. I graduated in Computer technology in 1976 and considered going back into computer technology in 1986. Regards, Michael Walters - two tier member of the Calgary Linux Users' Group Guild. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On February 16, 2005 10:04 pm, Bonnie Ferguson wrote: > If memory serves me (and that is questionable) I recall a university > mainframe in the early '70s, a bundle of keypunched cards, a basic > program designed to calculate unit prices of groceries, and a 24 hour > wait to go and pick up a newsprint output of the results. I think I got > a 1/2 credit for the course. (and I wasn't 3 years old ;). > Bonnie > > Cameron Nikitiuk wrote: > > Hmmm...all these trips back in time courtesy of the wayback machine... > > > > I remember my first foray into technology was programming basic on an > > Apple IIe (or something similar) in a ProDOS 3.3 (or could be DOS) in > > 1983. > > > > I then moved to a Vic 20, followed by a C64 and played around with a > > TRS80 Model 100....those were the days! > > > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >>Behalf Of Frank > >>Sent: February 16, 2005 4:53 PM > >>To: CLUG General > >>Subject: Re: [clug-talk] lurker de-cloaking. [zzzzzzzzzzttttttttppttt!] > >> > >> > >>Heh-heh!! I remember when a buddy of mine blew something like $800 on > >>RAM. This was when the price spiked in about 95/96 due to "a factory > >>burning down". (What economists refer to as "commodity marketing" - > >>kind of like the price of oil, but I digress.) > >> > >>Here's the funny part: at $55/MB, that would have been a whole 16 > >>MB...!! I seem to remember he was quite p*ssed when the price > >>normalized! LOL Oh well, he had too much money, anyway... *grin* > >> > >>Frank > >> > >>ps I also started with a Timex-Sinclair 1000. > >> > >>Gustin Johnson wrote: > >>>two meg RAM upgrade to just boot (RAM was $100/meg for my > >> > >>machine in those > >> > >>>days). > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
