My first programming book

[dr.diesel]

My Mom dropped off a box of stuff the other day she found while cleaning the basement.  On the left, my very first programming book, got it in 1990, I was 14 years old!  From there I quickly moved on to my second programming book on the right.  When I got to high school I took the only 2 programming courses (Apple II basic) offered, IIRC only 3 people signed up, of a graduating class of ~500 people.  Heck, now my oldest boy is 12, and he is already in a java class in school.

My Dad bought a Mac Plus when they first came out, I blame him!

[zapta]

... now my oldest boy is 12, and he is already in a java class in school.

in a Java class? Is he a member?

;-)

[apelly]

Inheritance

[chicken]

This was one of my first books about programming, back in the 80's.
There were a few others. I remember one explaining computer hardware and assembler as a comic, but couldn't find any reference on the web.

[Co6aka]

I remember one explaining computer hardware and assembler as a comic...

Wherein, on a dungeon door with a fanged-demon gripping the bars was a sign that read, "Please Do Not Feed the Assembly Programmers" or something like that?


Still have my first edition copy of "Fortran 77" around here somewhere... O0 
(How did i get so OLD so soon??? )

[HP-ILnerd]

This wasn't my first programming book, but this was the first that floored me:


Shows you how to write interpreters, compilers, ROM monitors, the works.  Simple versions yes, but you'd quickly get the idea and stop being scared of such things.

[codeboy2k]

I'd say Kilobaud magazine was my first programming lesson.. I learned to bit-flip in hex and octal from this magazine.  This is a scan I made from the cover.. I still have this magazine 

[Bored@Work]

Still have my first edition copy of "Fortran 77" around here somewhere... O0 
(How did i get so OLD so soon??? )

Pah, young whippersnapper. One of my first computer books I payed for was an introduction to FORTRAN 66. Please note the proper all-uppercase spelling 

[Bored@Work]

There were a few others. I remember one explaining computer hardware and assembler as a comic, but couldn't find any reference on the web.

That didn't happen to be an introduction to FORTH, Thinking FORTH by Leo Brodie? An updated version (Starting Forth) is online, including the comics from the original book:

http://www.forth.com/starting-forth/sf4/sf4.html
http://www.forth.com/starting-forth/

[zapta]

My first programming book was a M6800 programming reference. Did not have any real programming book for a while.

.

I built a small m6800 computer and had to bootstrap from scratch, 16x16 chars video interface for TV, and hardware hex keyboard to populate the RAM with my machine code (did not have assembler or any other computer that can help bootstrapping this one).  Initially I did not had a clue what I am doing and had to decipher the reference manual by myself (did not have anybody to ask). For example it took a while to realize that I need to initialize the stack pointer. Or, had to figure out if Load A means load the accumulator from memory or load the memory from the accumulator. Eventually it worked though.

[dr.diesel]

Inheritance

Yeah, my luck he'll end up as a Maximo programmer at IBM, 

My youngest boy, who is 9, is already quickly becoming a console junkie, couldn't be prouder!  I'll shed a tear the day he tell me of his favorite command, grep.

[anachrocomputer]

My first programming book was Programming the 6502, by Rodnay Zaks:



I read about BASIC programming in various computer magazines of the time, but this was my first book on the subject.

[denelec]

This is my first programming book.
I learned BASIC on the Color Computer more than 30 years ago.
I later learned assembly language for the 6809 CPU.
The CoCo BASIC was very similar to the GWBASIC supplied with MS-DOS.

[johnwill]

"An Introduction to Object-Orientated Programming with Java" ~ C. Thomas Wu

First book I actually bought, had mostly used online sources until then but the book was required for my uni course. Bought a few more since then but now I mostly just look at the code reference directly.

[TerraHertz]

This was mine. Published 1969; I was about 13.

Decades later a relative borrowed my copy and lost it. I recently bought a replacement copy via abebooks, for sentimental reasons. It's a really beautifully styled book inside and out too.

[Sigmoid]

My first book was Usborne's "The Beginner's Computer Handbook". It was really well written, and got me coding when I was no older than 6.

http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2004/06/the-beginners-computer-handboo.php

[echen1024]

This was my fist programming book. Introduced me to UNIX filestructures at around 8. It was my father's.

[linux-works]

not my book (just an ebay photo of it):



first computer was trs-80 ('trash 80') and it did come with level 1 basic and had a whole 4k of working memory and a cassette recorder for 'data storage'.

there were exactly 3 error message:

how?
what?
sorry!

that's it.  anything that could happen wrong got you one of those 3 error messages.

when level-2 basic came out, wow, we're running a real big-boy computer, now!

lol

wish I still had all my trs80 stuff.  I threw it out when I moved about 30 yrs ago, thinking it would not be worth anything.  maybe its still not

after that came the atari ST.  I still do have most of that and I should ebay it or craigslist it.  I have zero interest in powering up a 68000 cpu that used old style 3.5" floppies and pre-dates even scsi for disk drives.

[linux-works]

My first programming book was a M6800 programming reference. Did not have any real programming book for a while.

.

that was the 'textbook' for a college course I took on processors, back in the early 80's.  I still have that book, too.