I can hardly call myself a programmer but since I have written programs that are of some use to one or two (literally) people I suppose I must plead guilty.
I learned BASIC on a handheld 7 in x 2.5 in TRS 80 Radio Shack computer with something like 1.5 kb memory. I bought that machine for 40 Pounds Sterling in 1985 in a grey, rainy town called Hull, England, having earned an extra 40 Pounds signing two death certificates. Here's an image http://oldcomputers.net/pics/trs80pc1.jpg I actually taught myself BASIC in 1989 and was thrilled to discover that BASIC worled like a charm on my first PC bought in 1991. My most sucessful programs were 1. A calculator 2. An elementary math (addition, subtraction, multiplication) testing program that generated sums for my then 5 year old daughter 3. A numbers to words program for a child to learn how to spell numbers correctly 4. An expert system to diagnose abdominal pain I then gave up for over a decade - but in the last year or so I have been toying with some elementary programming applying game theory to a model of a radical Islamic society where the ratio of moderates, radicals and non Muslism can be varied to get a "score". shiv
