Author Topic: First computer you ever programmed on  (Read 9430 times)

DaveyC

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First computer you ever programmed on
« on: June 06, 2007, 02:36:08 PM »
Mine was a Sinclair ZX81. No colour, sound, 1K of memory and a keyboard that just sucked.
I used to type in BASIC game code from mags for hours on end and then be distraught when they
didn't work (QA not my strong point as a teenager!).

Tim Kemp

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Re: First computer you ever programmed on
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2007, 05:35:06 PM »
A Commodore PET 2001 with a tiny "Chiclet" keyboard, 8K of RAM and Microsoft BASIC.  I wrote code on that thing from 6:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night just breaking for classes.  The school gave me a key to an unused classroom and I would carry the computer from the programming teacher's room to "my" room and back.  I taught myself BASIC, 6502 Assembly language (no assembler, so I guess it was really machine code), boolean logic and most of the most of the programming concepts I use to this day.

I was blessed because my teacher didn't know BASIC and refused to learn it, "I'm retiring in a year and I'm not going to spend time on that."  He'd been the FORTRAN teacher for years and so that's what he taught even though we didn't have a computer we could use it on.  We helped each other with BASIC, but I was the only one in the class who was completely hooked.

I got my first programming job about 2 months after I started the class.  There I also programmed on Commodore PETs along with Apple ][s and Exidy Sorcerers.

Before I took that high school programming class I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  Afterwards there was no question.