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Re: First computers, was: team.net history

To: National Autocross Mailing List <autox@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: First computers, was: team.net history
From: "David W. James" <vnend@adelphia.net>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:20:51 -0500
On Monday, December 22, 2003, at 11:24  PM, Matt Murray wrote:
> What did YOU start on?

> Matt Murray

> DEC PDP-8L in high school (semi public, definitely not mine)
> Teacher got pissed that I was "playing" on it.

Piker.

I remember playing around with tape in 1962.

Paper tape.  Round confetti.

The computer was probably an IBM 1400, the big upgrade from the 800.  
The programmers were trying to figure out what they were going to do 
with all that extra RAM.

All 600 bytes of it.  Or was it bits?

Of course, I was 4 at the time, so when I say "playing with" that's 
accurate. :-)  Card punches were a year or two in my future then, and 
it was another 12 years or so before I actually wrote a program.  But 
there weren't a lot of 3rd graders in '66 who knew what octal, hex and 
binary were...

But then I also remember programming blocks in use, and I have no idea 
what machine those were for.

David
young old fart





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