What was your first experience in computer programmimg?

[+Larry]

For me, my first real programming was in 1970 while in the Army with an IBM 360-30 using Fortran and Cobol.  I even learned 360 assembler a little later. The cpu's in the 360 models were beasts (had a bunch of registers!), although as I remember, the ram was very modest -- just 64 KB of core memory.  The pricier models had more memory and were much faster.  I think our 360-50 at the University of Iowa had 256KB.  Storage was slow although we had a "fast" disk platter of sorts.  I have no idea how much storage the disk platters held, but as I recall, the platter assemblies could be interchanged, and we had several.  Most storage in that time period was done on big tape machines.  IIRC, the computer booted from the disk platter.  Fast forward to 1982...  After using time share systems at work for several years, I finally got the bug to get a personal computer -- of course an Atari 800.  Learning Atari Basic was a piece of cake after using Fortran for several years.  Those were very good times! 

[+slx]

A Sinclair ZX1000 with a 16K memory expansion module that would reset the computer when touched harder than a butterfly landing. The machine was borrowed from a former schoolmate who gave it to me while he was away on vacation. My first program was a character graphics animation consisting almost entirely of PRINT AT commands. I also saved to tape, but in my case it was a Pearlcorder dictation machine with a very useful digital LCD tape counter. I remember a rather thick and well-written manual but don't recall programming anything more sophisticated and don't think I kept the tape when I returned the computer (in a very space-age semi-soft little silvery plastic suitcase).

 

I learned more BASIC when I got an Atari 800 which must have been 0,5 to 1,5 years later.

 

A couple of years later I learned 6502 assembly language using Rodney Zaks, De Re Atari and Mapping the Atari as well as various articles. Never managed to program the arcade-style Lunar Lander I wanted. 
 

I also dabbled in Action! but felt hampered by a lack of articles fleshing out the rather terse manual. 
 

I stopped programming on my own computer once I changed to an ST but built a dBASE II application during my mandatory military service to automate the mindless filing job I had to perform. I was later asked to return for a voluntary stint to update that program, the only time I ever earned money coding. 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by slx
Added later programming experience.

[zzip]

My local school district was offering a summer BASIC course in the early 80s and I signed up.   Learned BASIC on a Commodore PET.   Then that fall got an Atari XL and started writing my own programs

 

Then a year or so later took a course in PASCAL in high school and learned "procedural programming".   I had fallen into the spaghetti code trap in BASIC.

[+5-11under]

Brother's ZX80, in about 1980. Edit: Basic programming, and some machine code.

 

Of older computers:

1. There was a VAX system in University in 1984. We learned some Fortran and Pascal, but that all seemed old at that point.

2. At the PCB place I worked around 1990, we did work with a couple of old custom computers, for PCB layout, and for CNC drilling.

3. At the newspaper where I worked, starting around 1992, there were a few mainframe computers, with Z80 cards, core memory cards, and the big 3' x 3' x 2' 300 MB hard drives with replaceable platters (in a stack of about 7 platters per "cloche"). Those were the back-up drives... the "new" 300 MB drives were about 2' x 1' x 1' (all duplicate RAID). The newspaper had some newer systems, but this system was still being used for classifieds, and for receiving the wire news.

4. Later, at the wafer fab, in the 2000's, there were still a couple of pieces of equipment that ran from PDP/11 computers.

 

[TGB1718]

I started with a Commodore Pet borrowed from work in 1980, they had purchased 2 and they just sat in a store room,

so I asked to use one and started with BASIC and a little machine code. Soon after I left them and purchased my Atari 800

with Cassette still have it today. 

[ClausB]

In 1975 I learned FORTRAN with a keypunch in Mr. Dyk's class. In 1976 I learned BASIC on the Altair 8800a. The story on page 8 of MITS Computer Notes:

 

cn0777.pdf

[+Stephen]

1982, BASIC on my 400 (fortunately it came with the B-Key already installed).  Did so many type-ins from Compute, Family Computing, Analog, and ANTIC.

[Tickled_Pink]

Type-in listings on our 16K Spectrum. Pretty sure my first was a version of Snake.

 

But real programming, as in writing my own? Toss up between my 800XL in '86 and the PC, also in '86. Might have done some BASIC on the XL before I started as a programming trainee converting PET software to PC in GWBASIC in September '86.

[_The Doctor__]

hmmm as I look around the room and see some mirrors, it looks like a great number of forum members started on this...

Programming could involve a machine shop if you want more or less digits.

Edited January 31, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[Teapot]

My first chance to use a computer was in ~1974 in my neighbor's house. He worked at JPL (programming the Viking Mars landers) and had a self built multi-user system with 2 terminals. So I could play trek on one while he worked on the other. I don't think there was any programming at that point.

 

In 6th grade (1977) a few of us got special access to the district print terminal at the local high school. Typed in from the 101 Computer Games book. Maybe made edits along the way.

 

Next was either a programmable calculator (owned by the school) in a math class or straight machine code on a KIM-1 and the Zaks book provided by a friend of my dad. I did both, I just can't remember the order.

 

That lead to an Ohio Scientific Challenger II that I bought used in summer 1979. Wrote an inventory tracking program for my parents' business (got paid for it, too) in BASIC. And assorted games.

 

And that fall I started going to a jr/high school that specialized in science and math and had access to Apple IIs and PETs and a PDP-11. Still all BASIC at that point.

 

The Challenger was replaced within a year by a CTIA 800. On special - $750 for 24K! And my JPL neighbor somehow got me a photocopy of the internal Atari documents about the system. They were released later as the Technical Reference Notes.

 

Between school and the 800 I learned many languages over the next 5 years. Wrote many programs for grades, many for fun and even a few for money.

[JR>]

1978 using a teletype much like this one to write BASIC programs on some unknown mini computer at college.  Followed shortly by IBM 370 coding in FORTRAN and ASSEMBLER.

 

[VinsCool]

Atari binaries hacking in a hex editor, late in 2020.

[Britishcar]

My TI-99/4A's built in BASIC and then onto the Atari 800 with Atari BASIC.

[+David_P]

PILOT on an Atari 400 in grade 6.  The following summer, we got an 800 with 810, 850 and 825 and BASIC and AtariWriter, plus a box of ten 5 1/4 disks.  Bottom pin on the 825 was broken, so we got a 1025 to replace the 850 and 825.

[mutil8]

programming on terminals at university computer science dept when I was a kid. My dad was a professor at the university so I guess that allowed me access.

Although I would go with various other kids and never seemed an issue for anyone to get in and use a terminal. In addition one of the other profs in my dads department had a 

sol 20 and encouraged me to use it in his office whenever I wanted. This was late 70s.

[reifsnyderb]

I learned to program in Atari BASIC somewhere around 1986 or so.  Somewhere around 1993, I taught myself to program in C on an IBM PC compatible.  In the late 1990's I got a job as a LAN Admin.  Eventually, I landed a job as a web developer and used ASP (yuck), PHP, and VB.

[ACML]

I was sitting in 11th grade Chemistry class (circa 1981) waiting for the class to start and I noticed my lab partner had a black thin object the size of a napkin.  I asked him what it was and he explained to me what a floppy disk can do.  I told he was full of crap.  I did ask more about this new computer lab class the high school had just started.  I ended up taking the class the next semester.  They had about a dozen Apple IIs with disk drives and monochrome green monitors.  Bam! I was hooked.

 

I remember about the fifth week of class I became the victim of one of the first viruses.  I sat at my computer, popped my floppy in the drive and noticed the prompt "Do you want to play poker?"  I'm game I thought, class hasn't officially started anyway.  I placed my bet and hit return.  Nothing happening for several seconds and I began to scan my setup.  Gee, why is the drive light on and spinning?  DOAH!  The jerk before me basically set up the ruse and when I hit return, it commanded the drive to format my disk.  Lost all five weeks worth of work.  I bought a 400 and I was off to the races.

 

Went on to college:

assembler on IBM 370

Fortran on DEC-PDP-11

Cobol

Pascal on HP-3000

 

Ended up with an Aerospace Engineering degree.  Went to work at Edwards AFB and flight tested the F-16, F-22 and F-35.  Even spent 3 years in between as a NASA rocket engine test engineer.  That little encounter in Chemistry which led to the question "What is that thing" set me on a different path.  I credit my experience programming my 400, and 800 with guiding that path. 

 

  

 

[Rybags]

First computer I saw/used was a System 80 (local TRS-80 clone) probably 1979-80 though only playing games, not programming.

 

Friends got Atari 400s in 1981, it was mostly gaming with programing coming later.

School had a Compucolor II which is where I learned Basic - I borrowed the manual over Christmas so it was all theory until I got back onto it.

Got my own Atari mid 1983, Assembly language towards the end of that year.  Also did C64 programming around the same time.

 

68000 on the ST in 1988.

I also worked with mainframes from mid 1986.  A few high level languages like CLIST, SAS and PL/1 from about 1988, then 370/XA Assembly from early 1990.

[+selgus]

Back in high school started with programming BASIC, then 8080 assembly on the Compucolor II, along with MACRO-10 assembly on a DECSYSTEM-20. Then it was BASIC and 6502 assembly on the ATARI 800, followed by 68000 assembly on the Amiga 1000. After that, programmed on pretty much every UNIX machine and processor in C/C++ until I entered the games industry in the mid-90's. On to the SEGA Genesis and then programmed on almost every console through the PS5.

[Geister]

My first computer was a plastic framework that you programmed with pegs.  Sliding plates in the framework reacted to the positioning of the pegs and produced an output to the program.  I had ordered that computer from an ad in the back of a comic book back in the sixties.  After working through the demo programs, I lost interest.  I later bought a 400 and I finally got the programming bug.

[Atari8guy]

Atari Basic, self taught from books and magazines as a preteen - never coded much of consequence though - then went to Alice Pascal in high school, VB6, C++, Java - took courses on COBOL at some point.  Never used any of those skills for much that was successful and would still consider myself a novice coder.   I did actually write SQL queries for a while for a company that used Postgres a lot, but now back to Atari Basic - it was always the most fun.

[woj]

Thought that I would be the first one with (also Extended) Basic on a TI99/4A, but someone got here first 😉

[Dinadan67]

I learned Basic and Z80 machine language on my first computer in 1983. Around 1985 i moved on to an 800XL and learned coding the 6502. As i was interested in programming games on the Atari, i did not bother with Basic anymore, as even Turbo Basic was not fast enough.

[danwinslow]

My high school had a mainframe connection, a teletype. I watched someone play original adventure on it. Then I got a sinclair zx80 with 1K of RAM (!). I wrote a 'lunar lander' game on it with characters for graphics (the lander was an 'M' and the thrust was the vertical pipe symbol). Joined the Air Force at 18 and they made me a programmer and I've been doing it ever since.

[jhd]

 

The depth of experience on this forum is just amazing! 

 

In about grade 6 (1982), my school acquired a TRS-80 Model III. I was too young to take any programming classes, but I played a few games programmed by an older student (who later did a CS degree). 

 

In about 1984, I signed-up for the BASIC programming class, but I was told that typing class (using a manual typewriter!) was a co-requisite, so I dropped the class the next day.  About the same time, I bought a Coco and learned BASIC from the manuals. I developed a few games, one of which was (rightly, in retrospect) rejected by a magazine.  

 

In High School (1985-1988), I took an Intro to Computers course (i.e. BASIC programming) in Grade 10 and Computer Science (with a focus on math problems and structured programming) in Grade 12. Our teacher was enamoured of Pascal and she wanted to teach it, but the school lacked adequate hardware to run it.

 

I got my first PC in 1988, and I became familiar enough with Turbo Pascal to develop a simple database program.

 

In the mid-1990s, I took some courses in HTML and later Delphi and SQL. 

 

I have also played-around with some C and PHP, but I am barely an amateur.