Author Topic: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?  (Read 141453 times)

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Offline digsys

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #325 on: February 18, 2020, 06:39:58 am »
Quote from: worsthorse
oh my. me, too. now i am wondering how many people on this thread have ever seen a punched card, let alone programmed a computer with a deck of them and then waited an hour for a big stack of two tone green paper output to see if worked...
Around ~1970, The SA Institute of Technology (I think that's what it was called then), came up with a "punch your own" punch card. The entire card was made up of pre-cut "bits". Deal was, operators took home a pile, and pushed out the codes with a paper-clip (following a binary pattern chart). Us "pre-historic geeks" didn't need no steenken chart, we knew all the binary codes :-)
Idea was great, worked awesome at first ... then came the reality. Chads would start to become static and furry and stick to everything. We had the job of constantly cleaning the bastids out of the entire machinery chain ... bastids got everywhere !! It was the era of the chadalypse :-) They stuck to everything / everyone !! ahhh memories
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Online brucehoult

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #326 on: February 18, 2020, 07:09:32 am »
Quote from: worsthorse
oh my. me, too. now i am wondering how many people on this thread have ever seen a punched card, let alone programmed a computer with a deck of them and then waited an hour for a big stack of two tone green paper output to see if worked...
Around ~1970, The SA Institute of Technology (I think that's what it was called then), came up with a "punch your own" punch card. The entire card was made up of pre-cut "bits". Deal was, operators took home a pile, and pushed out the codes with a paper-clip (following a binary pattern chart). Us "pre-historic geeks" didn't need no steenken chart, we knew all the binary codes :-)

That's how I did FORTRAN programming in 7th form at high school in Whangarei, NZ in 1980. The card had the pre-scored chads only in every second column, so we effectively had only 40 columns to work with. A custom program was inserted between the card reader job and the compile job to remove the useless columns. The programs were run on a small (48k word) Burroughs B1700 series machine with a card reader, 1200 LPM chain printer, two swappable 5 MB disk packs, and a teletype-style printing terminal.

Some other schools nearer to Auckland did ALGOL-W using felt-tipped pens to mark cards that were if I understood correctly (I never saw it) pre-printed with ALGOL keywords.


 

Offline tautech

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #327 on: February 18, 2020, 07:16:04 am »
Quote from: worsthorse
oh my. me, too. now i am wondering how many people on this thread have ever seen a punched card, let alone programmed a computer with a deck of them and then waited an hour for a big stack of two tone green paper output to see if worked...
Around ~1970, The SA Institute of Technology (I think that's what it was called then), came up with a "punch your own" punch card. The entire card was made up of pre-cut "bits". Deal was, operators took home a pile, and pushed out the codes with a paper-clip (following a binary pattern chart). Us "pre-historic geeks" didn't need no steenken chart, we knew all the binary codes :-)

That's how I did FORTRAN programming in 7th form at high school in Whangarei, NZ in 1980. The card had the pre-scored chads only in every second column, so we effectively had only 40 columns to work with. A custom program was inserted between the card reader job and the compile job to remove the useless columns. The programs were run on a small (48k word) Burroughs B1700 series machine with a card reader, 1200 LPM chain printer, two swappable 5 MB disk packs, and a teletype-style printing terminal.

Some other schools nearer to Auckland did ALGOL-W using felt-tipped pens to mark cards that were if I understood correctly (I never saw it) pre-printed with ALGOL keywords.
Gidday K1W1.  :)
At Massey High in west Auckland we hand punched cards that were sent away (can't remember where) to return a print out a few days later. Early-mid 70's when I was there.
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Online brucehoult

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #328 on: February 18, 2020, 08:51:24 am »
Quote from: worsthorse
oh my. me, too. now i am wondering how many people on this thread have ever seen a punched card, let alone programmed a computer with a deck of them and then waited an hour for a big stack of two tone green paper output to see if worked...
Around ~1970, The SA Institute of Technology (I think that's what it was called then), came up with a "punch your own" punch card. The entire card was made up of pre-cut "bits". Deal was, operators took home a pile, and pushed out the codes with a paper-clip (following a binary pattern chart). Us "pre-historic geeks" didn't need no steenken chart, we knew all the binary codes :-)

That's how I did FORTRAN programming in 7th form at high school in Whangarei, NZ in 1980. The card had the pre-scored chads only in every second column, so we effectively had only 40 columns to work with. A custom program was inserted between the card reader job and the compile job to remove the useless columns. The programs were run on a small (48k word) Burroughs B1700 series machine with a card reader, 1200 LPM chain printer, two swappable 5 MB disk packs, and a teletype-style printing terminal.

Some other schools nearer to Auckland did ALGOL-W using felt-tipped pens to mark cards that were if I understood correctly (I never saw it) pre-printed with ALGOL keywords.
Gidday K1W1.  :)
At Massey High in west Auckland we hand punched cards that were sent away (can't remember where) to return a print out a few days later. Early-mid 70's when I was there.

What language?

The ALGOL-W stuff was done by Databank, at least in 1980ish, but I think they'd been doing it for a while. Student programs went off to Auckland every night with all the cheques.

We happened to have access to that small Burroughs at a local bureau that did work mostly for the Whangarei City Council and the dairy factory (long gone, now "Tarawera Centre") on whose land on Lower Tarawera Rd they occupied a building. One of our math teachers (who also ran the electronics club in '76-'78 where we ordered 555s and 741s and 7400 series etc from David Reid Electronics) left to become a partner of the computer bureau.
 

Offline tautech

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #329 on: February 18, 2020, 09:08:32 am »
Quote from: worsthorse
oh my. me, too. now i am wondering how many people on this thread have ever seen a punched card, let alone programmed a computer with a deck of them and then waited an hour for a big stack of two tone green paper output to see if worked...
Around ~1970, The SA Institute of Technology (I think that's what it was called then), came up with a "punch your own" punch card. The entire card was made up of pre-cut "bits". Deal was, operators took home a pile, and pushed out the codes with a paper-clip (following a binary pattern chart). Us "pre-historic geeks" didn't need no steenken chart, we knew all the binary codes :-)

That's how I did FORTRAN programming in 7th form at high school in Whangarei, NZ in 1980. The card had the pre-scored chads only in every second column, so we effectively had only 40 columns to work with. A custom program was inserted between the card reader job and the compile job to remove the useless columns. The programs were run on a small (48k word) Burroughs B1700 series machine with a card reader, 1200 LPM chain printer, two swappable 5 MB disk packs, and a teletype-style printing terminal.

Some other schools nearer to Auckland did ALGOL-W using felt-tipped pens to mark cards that were if I understood correctly (I never saw it) pre-printed with ALGOL keywords.
Gidday K1W1.  :)
At Massey High in west Auckland we hand punched cards that were sent away (can't remember where) to return a print out a few days later. Early-mid 70's when I was there.

What language?
Dunno, tooooooo long ago to remember.

Quote
The ALGOL-W stuff was done by Databank, at least in 1980ish, but I think they'd been doing it for a while. Student programs went off to Auckland every night with all the cheques.
Ah yes Databank it was IIRC. Yep that sounds correct.  :)

Quote
We happened to have access to that small Burroughs at a local bureau that did work mostly for the Whangarei City Council and the dairy factory (long gone, now "Tarawera Centre") on whose land on Lower Tarawera Rd they occupied a building. One of our math teachers (who also ran the electronics club in '76-'78 where we ordered 555s and 741s and 7400 series etc from David Reid Electronics) left to become a partner of the computer bureau.
Nice, sounds like the north was a bit better prepared in things 'tronic as all we had was science and physics that only dabbled around the edges.  :=\
Later when my kids went through it was heaps better and youngest son won a few prizes in school electronic classes. Dad was real chuffed !
Ah yes, DRE brings back memories, bought a couple of kits from them over the years while trying to keep an interest in electronics when other life at the time was dragging me sideways.  :scared:
Still, the interest never died and later after family responsibilities diminished I eventually got into this game and really by pure luck when Siglent offered me the NZ agency after selling a class set of 15 scopes to a Govt dept.
Take care Bruce.
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Offline worsthorse

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #330 on: February 18, 2020, 06:02:51 pm »
Quote from: worsthorse
oh my. me, too. now i am wondering how many people on this thread have ever seen a punched card, let alone programmed a computer with a deck of them and then waited an hour for a big stack of two tone green paper output to see if worked...
Around ~1970, The SA Institute of Technology (I think that's what it was called then), came up with a "punch your own" punch card. The entire card was made up of pre-cut "bits". Deal was, operators took home a pile, and pushed out the codes with a paper-clip (following a binary pattern chart). Us "pre-historic geeks" didn't need no steenken chart, we knew all the binary codes :-)

That's how I did FORTRAN programming in 7th form at high school in Whangarei, NZ in 1980. The card had the pre-scored chads only in every second column, so we effectively had only 40 columns to work with. A custom program was inserted between the card reader job and the compile job to remove the useless columns. The programs were run on a small (48k word) Burroughs B1700 series machine with a card reader, 1200 LPM chain printer, two swappable 5 MB disk packs, and a teletype-style printing terminal.

Some other schools nearer to Auckland did ALGOL-W using felt-tipped pens to mark cards that were if I understood correctly (I never saw it) pre-printed with ALGOL keywords.
Gidday K1W1.  :)
At Massey High in west Auckland we hand punched cards that were sent away (can't remember where) to return a print out a few days later. Early-mid 70's when I was there.

My punch card days were at university, in an antenna engineering course. We'd get these problems like, using two antennas at these two locations, generate this antenna pattern. We had to write FORTRAN programs to interpret the results we got from the modeling programming, which spit out tables and an antenna pattern printed with asteriks; it was like spice only much much more primitive.  The average turnaround time from deck input to pile-of-printer-paper was about forty minutes and making mistakes   We were only allowed to run a single job at a time, so making mistakes or experimenting meant a lot of hours stuck in the center.

Of course the computer center was on the far edge of campus, surrounded by open fields and as far away from pubs and food as possible. This was not my favorite course.   :-DD
« Last Edit: February 18, 2020, 06:04:40 pm by worsthorse »
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Offline Deni

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #331 on: February 18, 2020, 06:38:38 pm »
When I was at the university (a LOOOONG time ago) we had IM6100 (Intersil's PDP-8 single chip version) develpment board (some LED's and buttons, standard stuff). You can punch in your code (manually assembled, of course) over hex keyboard. Must add that I had no previous contact with any kind of computer. I wrote my version of "running ligts" , entered the code and pushed RUN. And something was wrong - instead of single LED being lit, all 8 (or 12?, don't recall) were (as it looked) constantly on. I scratched my head, go over the (very simple) code over and over again but couldn't find the reason for odd behaviour. And then I realized that the program loop was executed so quickly that it only looked as all LED's are permanently on  :palm:. I had no idea how fast the CPU actually runs... :).
 
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Offline unknownparticle

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #332 on: February 18, 2020, 08:47:21 pm »
Something called a Sirius, we had a small family business and bought it in 1982 to run our accounts and sales order system.  Don't recall the software or OS, only that it had no HD, just dual floppy drives. 
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Online brucehoult

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #333 on: February 18, 2020, 09:43:57 pm »
Nice, sounds like the north was a bit better prepared in things 'tronic as all we had was science and physics that only dabbled around the edges.  :=\

Ahh .. just a couple of switched-on math teachers at one school. The one who ran the electronics club (a lunchtime thing) and later the commercial computer bureau had industry experience -- in the UK I think -- before he became a teacher. I recall he also brought along some 2m radio gear at some point and showed using simplex mode to chat to other people using a repeater. So I guess he must have been a HAM too. Again, this was mid to late 70s.

The music teacher was notable too. In 3rd and 4th form (76+77) we had music classes but they were more like "music appreciation". We got exposed in class to things ranging from "Dark Side of the Moon" to "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen". He had a friend in the UK who recorded music from London's private (even pirate?) FM stations and regularly sent cassettes to NZ. Mr Green would bring his Nakamichi 1000 deck in from home to play them for us. In 6th form we could take music appreciation as an option and went every week to his house (some people had cars by then) and used the Nakamichi turntable, preamp, amp, and some huge blocky speakers with curved low and wide electrostatic tweeters on the top. "One of These Days" (from "Meddle") was a favourite that got played there most weeks at high volume -- and then flip the disk straight to "Echoes" :-)
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #334 on: February 18, 2020, 10:16:38 pm »
Nice, sounds like the north was a bit better prepared in things 'tronic as all we had was science and physics that only dabbled around the edges.  :=\

Ahh .. just a couple of switched-on math teachers at one school. The one who ran the electronics club (a lunchtime thing) and later the commercial computer bureau had industry experience -- in the UK I think -- before he became a teacher. I recall he also brought along some 2m radio gear at some point and showed using simplex mode to chat to other people using a repeater. So I guess he must have been a HAM too. Again, this was mid to late 70s.

The music teacher was notable too. In 3rd and 4th form (76+77) we had music classes but they were more like "music appreciation". We got exposed in class to things ranging from "Dark Side of the Moon" to "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen". He had a friend in the UK who recorded music from London's private (even pirate?) FM stations and regularly sent cassettes to NZ. Mr Green would bring his Nakamichi 1000 deck in from home to play them for us. In 6th form we could take music appreciation as an option and went every week to his house (some people had cars by then) and used the Nakamichi turntable, preamp, amp, and some huge blocky speakers with curved low and wide electrostatic tweeters on the top. "One of These Days" (from "Meddle") was a favourite that got played there most weeks at high volume -- and then flip the disk straight to "Echoes" :-)

Of course, today the music teacher (assuming the position isn't cut due to attempting to save money) would be arrested for taking school kids home to his house, no matter how noble the purpose...
 

Offline Nautilus

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #335 on: February 19, 2020, 04:06:05 am »
Glad you enjoyed the memories, Nautilus!

Yes, Hal Hardenberg(h?)'s "DTACK Grounded" newsletter was something special. A bit like an earlier incarnation of Dave in a different medium -- "no script, no fear, all opinion"!  ;)

In Germany, I got my copy of the newsletter via multiple  stages of photocopiers. Including the "Redlands" pages with source code, which you were not meant to copy; hard-to-read but not illegible... I am sure you have found the scanned and OCR'd versions of the newsletter, which are all available online?  http://www.easy68k.com/paulrsm/dg/

I imported my DTACK Grounded board directly from the US, which felt like a major adventure at the time. Heck, even sending money to the US was an adventure! Used my board to develop a Modula-2 compiler, to bootstrap the software development for a new 68000 computer a few friends of mine were developing in a startup. No, you won't have heard of that one -- the "Gepard", which unfortunately imploded after just a few 100 units had been sold, when Atari came out with the ridiculously low cost Atari ST.

Actually, I had Paul over about (yikes) two+ decades ago to copy any disks or newsletters I had that he didn't.

Did your Modula-2 compiler get mentioned in the newsletter? I vaguely remember something like that.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2020, 04:07:56 am by Nautilus »
 

Online ebastler

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #336 on: February 19, 2020, 10:59:47 am »
Actually, I had Paul over about (yikes) two+ decades ago to copy any disks or newsletters I had that he didn't.

Did your Modula-2 compiler get mentioned in the newsletter? I vaguely remember something like that.

Ah, it's a small world... (The world of DTACK Grounded enthusiasts in particular!)  :)

I don't think the news of my Modula-2 compiler made it back to Hal and the DTACK Grounded newsletter. Happened in a far-away country and at a very obscure computer company, after all... Some technical details and historical information about the "Gepard" computer have just recently been compiled by another German hobbyist, by the way: https://randoc.wordpress.com/tag/gepard/
 

Offline rrinker

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #337 on: February 19, 2020, 06:18:53 pm »
 I was always about 1 year behind punched cards. I've used a keypunch, but not for programming. In High School, my year was the first year the FORTRAN class used Apple II's, the year before, they used punch cards and sent everyone's card deck to the district office to run on whatever system they had there, I have no idea what it was. In college, when I started, there were a few keypunch stations but everything was CRT terminals - the CDC Cyber 730 in the engineering department still reported what in most systems would post as "syntax error" as "error on input card" even though there were no cards involved. I believe it was the summer between 3rd and 4th year they announced the retirement of the last punch card reader, and if anyone still had any card decks they needed, to bring them to the computing center to have the read and stored on tape.
 The odd juxtaposition was the Tek graphing terminal sitting next to the very last keypunch terminal. At least, I think it was the Tek. It was all built in to the desk. I' not even sure which system it was connected to - we weren't allowed to use it as undergrads.
 

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #338 on: February 19, 2020, 06:41:46 pm »
The change from punched cards to other media was stunning in its  magnitude.  When I was a student everyone, students, faculty, staff had boxes and boxes of the cards with programs and data.  Each box held 500 cards, and I had four boxes by the time I finished my first computer course.  The cards themselves were ubiquitous, in business, schools, government.  There were craft articles on how to make Christmas ornaments and other arty things out of surplus cards.

But terminals were being introduced.  By the time I left school the keypunch machines were orphans, the card sorter sat idle, and cards were starting to disappear.  They held on for a couple of decades in places.  For example, microfilm frames were often stored on a specialized punched card, and these lasted a decade or more after data processing uses disappeared.  As I recall the US income tax refund checks were on punched cards through the 80s or early 90s.   That was easily ten years after I had seen them anywhere else.
 
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Offline rrinker

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #339 on: February 19, 2020, 08:05:06 pm »
 You're right, I almost forgot about that. I do remember the punch card checks I got during my early working years.

I did have a class that required the use of an 8" floppy disk. Those who haven't had the pleasure - if you ever hold an 8" floppy, you'll quickly realize they came to be called 'floppy disks'. 5 1/4" disks are downright rigid in comparison, and the 3 1/2" just kind of inherited the name because other than the media inside, it's not at all 'floppy'

The fun part was it was an 8080 assembly programming class. The need for the disk was because we had to write and compile the programs on the Cyber mainframe, and in the lab where we could then test run the programs on CP/M machines, only one was connected to the mainframe. So we had to download the program to our disk on that machine and then switch to another one to try running it. If it didn't work - back off to the computer lab (in another building!) to access the mainframe and edit/recompile. The hardware was generic 8080 S-100 bus, it wasn't a known name system like Altair or IMSAI.

Mine always worked first try - because at that time, my personal computer was my TRS-80 4P, and I had CP/M for it, so my programs were fully tested and debugged prior to keying anything in to the mainframe. A step which I still had to deal with (actually, I dialed in and text transferred it from my room, then I only had to go to the lab in the engineering building with my 8" floppy) because the requirement was to have a printed program listing and when your program worked, you had to show it running successfully to the lab TA< who then signed off on your printed copy which was what got turned in.

The year after I took the class, they filled out labs with PC compatible MS-DOS machines, I had one myself, and they used an emulator instead of the old S-100 machines. Since the process was now easier, they made the programs more difficult - I was helping someone out that next year, and their FIRST program as as complex as our LAST program. Good thing 8080/Z80 assembly was the second one I ever learned, and strongest next to my first, from my venerable old 1802 first computer.

 

Offline Nusa

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #340 on: February 20, 2020, 01:30:16 am »
I literally knew how to jam and un-jam keypunches before I knew how to read. Says something about my childhood, doesn't it?
 

Offline worsthorse

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #341 on: February 20, 2020, 02:20:42 am »
The change from punched cards to other media was stunning in its  magnitude.  When I was a student everyone, students, faculty, staff had boxes and boxes of the cards with programs and data.  Each box held 500 cards, and I had four boxes by the time I finished my first computer course.  The cards themselves were ubiquitous, in business, schools, government.  There were craft articles on how to make Christmas ornaments and other arty things out of surplus cards.

But terminals were being introduced.  By the time I left school the keypunch machines were orphans, the card sorter sat idle, and cards were starting to disappear.  They held on for a couple of decades in places.  For example, microfilm frames were often stored on a specialized punched card, and these lasted a decade or more after data processing uses disappeared.  As I recall the US income tax refund checks were on punched cards through the 80s or early 90s.   That was easily ten years after I had seen them anywhere else.

I forgot about making Christmas wreaths with punch cards!  You are right, punch cards were everywhere. When I was in school, you used decks for all of your programming and modeling courses, unless you were in the graduate computer science program. One of my friends in the CSci program showed me a room in his class building that had ten terminals. That was the closest I got to one until I got a job with a computer workstation startup.

That same guy was driving to class near the end of the semester, with his compiler project organized into three or four boxes of punch cards. He got rear ended at a light. He wasn't hurt but the boxes came loose and spilled. The poor guy was devastated. He had a complete printout of the deck but had to rebuild it from scratch.  |O   |O
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Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #342 on: February 20, 2020, 02:31:09 am »
The change from punched cards to other media was stunning in its  magnitude.  When I was a student everyone, students, faculty, staff had boxes and boxes of the cards with programs and data.  Each box held 500 cards, and I had four boxes by the time I finished my first computer course.  The cards themselves were ubiquitous, in business, schools, government.  There were craft articles on how to make Christmas ornaments and other arty things out of surplus cards.

But terminals were being introduced.  By the time I left school the keypunch machines were orphans, the card sorter sat idle, and cards were starting to disappear.  They held on for a couple of decades in places.  For example, microfilm frames were often stored on a specialized punched card, and these lasted a decade or more after data processing uses disappeared.  As I recall the US income tax refund checks were on punched cards through the 80s or early 90s.   That was easily ten years after I had seen them anywhere else.

I forgot about making Christmas wreaths with punch cards!  You are right, punch cards were everywhere. When I was in school, you used decks for all of your programming and modeling courses, unless you were in the graduate computer science program. One of my friends in the CSci program showed me a room in his class building that had ten terminals. That was the closest I got to one until I got a job with a computer workstation startup.

That same guy was driving to class near the end of the semester, with his compiler project organized into three or four boxes of punch cards. He got rear ended at a light. He wasn't hurt but the boxes came loose and spilled. The poor guy was devastated. He had a complete printout of the deck but had to rebuild it from scratch.  |O   |O

Things like that accident were what the card sorter was for.  Columns 71-80 were reserved for a card index number.  The keypunch machines could be set to punch those index numbers automatically, with an initial number and step count.  Smart guys used 10 or more for the step count so you could insert lines later.  With those index numbers a spilled deck could be re-organized with ten or less passes through the card sorter.  The only thing you had to do was get them right side up, and the clipped corner did that job.
 

Offline rrinker

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #343 on: February 20, 2020, 06:54:11 pm »
 Like line numbering in BASIC. Only a fool would number them 1-2-3-4-etc. By 10's at least, and then if you had to stick a line in, it was x5, so you still had room before and after the new line to add even more.
 

Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #344 on: February 20, 2020, 07:22:09 pm »
Like line numbering in BASIC. Only a fool would number them 1-2-3-4-etc. By 10's at least, and then if you had to stick a line in, it was x5, so you still had room before and after the new line to add even more.

"AUTO 10,10"
Keyboard error: Press F1 to continue.
 

Offline rrinker

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #345 on: February 20, 2020, 09:38:43 pm »
 If your BASIC supported it  :D

Radio Shack had a RENUM utility you could change the line numbers (fixed GOTOs and GOSUBs as well) for Level II BASIC.
 

Offline Martinn

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #346 on: February 23, 2020, 10:02:14 am »
Outing me as youngster: UMS-85, must have been mid-80s
8085, 256 bytes RAM, HEX code entry (I still know C3 00 08...)
Picture: https://makerprojekte.de/tag/ums-85/
No punch card reader, but cassette drive interface which I connected to my dad's tape drive (https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/philips_el3541_00k.html)
I still remember writing a "connect four" progam I mostly lost against. That was fun.
Later C-64, Sinclair QL and then PC.
 

Offline Nautilus

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #347 on: February 24, 2020, 06:11:13 am »
Actually, I had Paul over about (yikes) two+ decades ago to copy any disks or newsletters I had that he didn't.

Did your Modula-2 compiler get mentioned in the newsletter? I vaguely remember something like that.

Ah, it's a small world... (The world of DTACK Grounded enthusiasts in particular!)  :)

I don't think the news of my Modula-2 compiler made it back to Hal and the DTACK Grounded newsletter. Happened in a far-away country and at a very obscure computer company, after all... Some technical details and historical information about the "Gepard" computer have just recently been compiled by another German hobbyist, by the way: https://randoc.wordpress.com/tag/gepard/

I've been pondering, and yes I think I heard about someone doing Modula-2 then. How many customers were doing that?  ;) 
I think my 30yo memory is from Hal, if it didn't make it into the newsletter.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2020, 06:20:52 am by Nautilus »
 

Offline bobcat2000

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #348 on: March 06, 2020, 04:11:31 pm »
My first computer was a Casio FX-700P, and then slowly upgraded to a Sharp PC-1350.

I learned programming with the Casio.
The Sharp is great.  You can program the Sharp with machine language.  Make the program run very fast in the Sharp.  The Casio can only do BASIC.
Both have expansion ports.  You can plug all kind of craps to them.  The Sharp even has a serial port.

« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 04:19:08 pm by bobcat2000 »
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: What was the very first computer you owned or used ?
« Reply #349 on: March 06, 2020, 06:11:08 pm »
My first computer was a Casio FX-700P, and then slowly upgraded to a Sharp PC-1350.

I learned programming with the Casio.
The Sharp is great.  You can program the Sharp with machine language.  Make the program run very fast in the Sharp.  The Casio can only do BASIC.
Both have expansion ports.  You can plug all kind of craps to them.  The Sharp even has a serial port.

(Attachment Link)

I had one of those Sharps...   great little tool.   Had it programmed to calculate probabilities for Bridge (card game)!
 


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