What was your first experience?

[NeoPhyte_Rep]

In the vein of clivesay's question, what was your first computing experience?

Mine was during my college BS curriculum for Engineering.  We were given access to GE Tymeshare, and an IBM 1130 (8K memory + 8K swap) for our FORTRAN IV work and a small analog computer with unitary amplifiers for our simulation work.

(According to Gerald M. Weinberg, who wrote The Psychology of Computer Programming ISBN 0-932633-42-0, whatever language we first learn determines the style we use for all the other languages we learn.  I hope I've grown past that.)

[mikshaw]

The first or second year of high school (1984 or 85), we got two Apple][ machines and learned a little Basic. I hated it, and didn't touch another computer until about 4 years later...PC Paint on DOS.

[Lee]

"Intro to Computers" in 1981 at Penn State New Kensington involved learning TRS-80 BASIC on some kind of a Z80 platform with a dozen or so dumb terminals attached (we weren't encouraged to learn much about the system itself).  I loved it.

The next semester it was FORTRAN using a punched cards and a line printer - the computer itself was at main campus.  And yeah, my "pseudocode" exercises in the FORTRAN class looked an awful lot like BASIC (thank you very much, Mr. Weinberg!) but I managed to keep myself out of the "spaghetti code" habit until I got involved with MUMPS in about 2004.

[ahmrahtcheer]

My first real experience with a computer was with a C64 purchased by my folks in 1982.  I was immediately hooked, but held off buying one until after my marriage.  I then purchased a 128k Mac, which went through all possible upgrades ending with a Mac+.  Three more Macs followed, along with a 286, an Apple ][e, some Atari 8-bits, several laptops, a KayPro II, andi can't easily recall what else.

[ke4nt]

My first experience?  Her name was Michelle, and she liked to wear nothing but cowboy boots when she.......

My first computer was a version similar to this, that I got as a xmas present from my grandparents.
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/02/build_your_own_.html
..a 3 digit binary computer..

Next was the graduation from the old 'pong' and atari games to an atari computer, various C=64/128 toys,
a handfull of TRS80's and color 3s, several AT&T 8086s and IBM 8088 turbos, and and finally my first 386-16DX
with DrDOS.  I felt I could rule the world on a 386 w/4M memory, Norton Commander, and an 80MB HD. 
Stacks of floppies........big ones, small ones........

Today, my cellphone can do more than all of them combined.. Heck, I've got SSH, RDP, 4G storage, and! 3G inet.
Runs for hours and hours on a single charge.  Fits in my pocket.  Use it anywhere.  Full color.  Takes pictures.
Who'da thunk it?

16GB pendrives for $16 ??   So much music , so little time.

73
ke4nt

[Lee]

The first computer that I actually -owned- was a Timex/Sinclair 1000 which I bought for around $40.00, well after their popularity had peaked.  I had a 16 Kbyte RAM expansion module (which somehow managed to degrade the video output), a microcassette recorder and a 5" TV hooked up to it.

I later moved on to a (used) Atari 400 with a cassette drive.  I paid more for the BASIC cartridge than I did for the computer.

Then came a C64.  I got by for a year with a borrowed cassette drive before I could afford the big $ for a diskette drive - then the entire year's worth of accumulated data and programs fit handily on -one- of those whopping high capacity diskettes (172 Kbytes!).  I eventually had a stack of 4 diskette drives next to that machine - I was trying to learn various programming languages and didn't want to be constantly shuffling floppies for the compiler, headers, libraries and source code.

A used Ampro LittleBoard 1b (a Z80 SBC) introduced me to the joys of having a "real operating system" (CP/M) and got me hooked on assembly language as well.

A used Amiga "1000" was my first system with a hard disk.  That made a big difference.

I dabbled with a pair of ancient Burroughs B-20s for a couple of weeks but then scrapped them.

Then I bought my first dos box - a 386SX-20 w/4 MB of RAM and 40 MB HD (I deleted Windows 3.1 immediately and ran just M$ DOS 5.00)...  and I haven't had a really cool computer since then.

I've been through a lot of computers since then, mostly freebies, hand-me-downs and scrap of the "Wintel" variety.  I keep a few around, hoping the kids will get interested in something that doesn't play "Star Wars", but the wife now says I have to get rid of one (or more!) for every one I bring in the door.  Something about "clutter"...

My current computer is a Dell PowerEdge SC440 (with plenty of ram) that I want to get set up with a good linux desktop as the host OS and run some other stuff (SCO, M$) in VMs.  I have several older machines running M$ XP, DSL 3.x and maybe still a Win 98 installation.

Tiny Core, like DSL is on my short list of Linux distros not so much for being light weight or portable but because I think I can wrap my brain around it without hurting myself too badly.

At work over the years its been DOS, Windows, Netware, SCO, Solaris, HPUX on whatever platform (including some virtual machines).  It seems the hardware's almost irrelevant these days.

[Onyarian]

My first experience was in 1984 with an Oric Atmos 48k, with TV as monitor and a cassette recorder, later with a 3'' floppy diskette.
Next an Amstrad CPC6128 128k an 3" floppy
Next a PC clone 8088  7Mhz with two 5''1/4 floppys and a green monitor, later with a 2Mb pci-HD
Next....
and finally an Acer AspireOne 8Gb ssd + 16Gb SD from 299€!

OS from msdos, drdos6.0 and W$ to linux in 1999

[roberts]

Lee mentioned:

I dabbled with a pair of ancient Burroughs B-20s for a couple of weeks but then scrapped them.

Brings back memories. My first computer experience was with Burroughs. 1971 I hand coded machine language, yes, hexidecimal, accounting programs on punhced paper tape. A year later had the luxury of having access to an actual assembler. Most of the seventies, I wrote large integrated accounting packages all in assembler. I had customers from San Diego to Fresno. A few years later I was required to write COBOL. I was an independent contractor mostly for Burroughs Branches in Southern California. The B20 was just coming onto the scene when I closed my business. The first computer that I owned, a B80 mini with my own COBOL compiler!

I got involved with micro computers by writing 6502 assembly on an Ohio Scientific. Hated basic. I choose COMAL and got very involved in promoting COMAL. Had several articles published in the little mag COMAL TODAY. I own a rare Dutch Language official IBM COMAL for the IBM PC. Both work and hobby has been toying with computers and languages.

When I opted for 9-5 job, I went to the City of Garden Grove, California, where I introduced the City to Samba and later Linux hosting Windows 3.11 network. Was the first large deployment of Linux. Had visiters from around the globe come to visit. Met many Linux illimuninaries and was a panel speaker at the first Linux World Expo in San Jose.

Did much speaking events after that. Typically to debate against Novell Networks. My biggest speaking event was COMDEX.

So many computers, so many languages later. Still learning. What a ride it has been.

[kuky]

i begin with a spectrum of a friend after these i buy a toshiba with a plotter with 4 colour pens, the next amstrad cpc 64 , hiundai , a clone celeron 900 , a pakito intel dot station , a do yoursef dsl style via (name pc corral), and the latest a asus eepc...


snif the time go out ..in the old times i made in basic  programs to feed dairy cows, simulation of pasture with cows and reproductive of dairy cows (of course)...1982-1995 msdos  95-08 win95-98 05-08 linux dsl

1996  internet with a noise modem gori ...gori...

2006 a adsl no noise internet...

[florian]

First computer I used was my brother's Sinclair ZX81. Then Amstrad CPC 6128 which I kept for quite long. Learnt programming in Basic on those. Then I moved on to the PC and DOS. I programmed a bit in (Turbo) Pascal. Also at same time I've spent a lot of time on the HP 48gx calculator. Then I started to get into more serious programming and into Unix at Univ. I had Windows for some years and have learned to dislike it with passion. Obviously nowadays at home, Linux and free software are kings.

At the moment I have some old computers (mostly stuff that their respective owners no longer wanted) and a Asus Eee PC 701 netbook (4Gb flashdisk and tiny 800x480 screen) onto which I should start installing Tiny Core Linux and other stuff. It's getting difficult to find enough time for my computer projects nowadays.

[kuky]

_{and a Asus Eee PC 701 netbook (4Gb flashdisk and tiny 800x480 screen) onto which I should start installing Tiny Core Linux and other stuff. I}

 i am waiting...

a question

can be an app to run basic in tc, easy to install, for retrosoft ?

[curaga]

There are several basic interpreters / compilers for linux. I think one was freebasic.

[robc]

My first experience was with a 386 desktop that my parents got the family for one Christmas...I didn't even know what a computer was until then (not including an Atari or Nintendo). I then took an HTML summer course at a community college nearby when I was still fairly young, used what I learned there to start a little Webpage company with a friend of mine when the internet was still new to the public.
Got to college, learned some Java, C/C++, VHDL, very limited assembly...thats all for a hardware engineer
Now, learned Basic (RealBasic), Linux (enough to be dangerous), and a few others on the job....for various industrial computers, mini-itx and nano-itx boards

[Juanito]

At roughly the same time (circa 1979 - ahem) my first go at computing was to attempt to execute a simple program using fortran/punch cards on a mainframe 30 miles up the road and being given 8 hours to print a sine wave using a Commodore pet/64.

I recall it took about 15mins to figure out how to switch the Commodore/printer on...

[stunix*com]

good to see some old friends here.

first look at a computer in school around 83 was some sort of big dos box, i had to type out a simple program, i remember hating it because the other 10 computers were "bbc b"s and i thought id drawn the short straw.  looking back i should have paid more attention.

then a spectrum 48k  with a specdrum synth, tried a little basic before psu died.

i had little exposure of computers till 97 when i landed a job in a korean electronics company and had 6 months in south korea training.

then went back to school 2 years later to get a computing degree to catch up using knoppix in my final project.  thinking i could just release my idea of an os calling it stunix, hence the name.

now Im a linux plumber!