I also learned BASIC in the early 1980s. By then it was passe. I quickly shifted to PASCAL and assembler.
I suspect that learning and using BASIC in 1960 might have been a much different situation, however. At that time, it was revolutionary, and if I had 20 more years of computer experience than I do, I might actually be marginally competent by now. Instead, I'm still as much of a hacker when it comes to computers as I am when it comes to cameras. Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Bob W <p...@web-options.com> wrote: >> From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of >> Daniel J. Matyola >> >> Yes, I also worked with computers that had punch cards in the 1960s. >> Dull Boring work. >> >> As I result, I lost my chance to get in on the ground floor. My four >> math courses in college were with John Kemeny, then head of the Math >> Department, and later President, of Dartmouth College. He told us he >> was working on a computer programing language, and was seeking student >> volunteers. Our response was that we didn't want to get involved with >> computers that gave you paper cuts, and anyway, we had our slide rules; >> who needed computers? Kemeny went on to develop BASIC, which was (and >> perhaps still is) patented by the college. It took 20 years before I >> finally became involved with computers; by that time, BASIC had gone >> through numerous iterations and improvements. >> > > you haven't missed much. I learnt Basic on my first programming course, > alongside Cobol and Pascal, in about 1981. I recently had to write an Excel > VBA macro at work, having not done any real programming (ie used in a > professional environment, subject to change control and all the usual > programming-in-the-large considerations) for many years, and it really is > very, very similar to the various primitive forms of BASIC I've used in > various workplaces over the years. > > There is something knocking around called True BASIC > <http://www.truebasic.com/>, which purports to be a sort of fundamentalist's > BASIC, stripped of the barnacles it has acquired over the years. > > I'm not a fan of BASIC. It's one of those things that amateurs think is easy > to do until they shoot themselves metaphorically in the head. A disciplined > professional programmer can make it work well enough, but even the best of > us make mistakes and it's too easy for them to slip through BASIC's rather > feeble defences. > > B > > >> Dan Matyola >> http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola >> >> > On Aug 25, 2012, at 20:10 , John Sessoms wrote: >> > >> >> From: "Daniel J. Matyola" >> >> >> >>> My first computer was an Apple ][. Great computer. I loved it. I >> >>> learned Basic, Pascal, Assembler and even a bit of machine language >> >>> programing on it. It certainly wasn't "plug -and-play," but it was >> >>> designed for computer hobbyists, and most of them loved it. >> >>> >> >>> Dan Matyola >> >> >> >> My "first" computer was an IBM System 360. I learned to place the >> cards in the card reader "Face down & nine edge first, AND DON'T TOUCH >> ANYTHING ELSE KID!" >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
