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An old programmer

shrdlu-junction

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Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
1
I'm 57, live in Sydney, NSW, Australia, and have been addicted to computer programming for most of my life. The first computer I programmed was one of two time-sharing mainframes (there were probably only a few computers in all of Sydney then - this is about 1968.) You accessed it by dialling up from a teletype and typing in your Basic code (or running a tape). Hard to think that I was so amazed when I typed

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 END

then typed
RUN

and the ASR33 came back with

HELLO

!

Anyway, I wondered if anybody had (or could make) a recording of an ASR33 at full tilt - it would be like listening to the first music you heard as a baby!

Thanks in advance & look forward to exchanging reminiscences. BTW, machines I've been associated with are:
IBM 7040, PDP-11, ICL 1900/2903, VAX, a Nova mini that I can't remember the model of (1971), and a micro a built from a kit around the National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor in 1977.
 
I'm only 41 but I just love the sound and SMELL of a teletype, i first started programming on one when I was 11, and I'm ashamed to say that we arranged an accident for it, just to get launched into the microcomputer age, It worked, and the school bought an apple ][, but I was very fond of that old machine & I've felt guilty ever since.

I've been looking for an asr33 for a while just to get it running, and smell it!
 
Hello and welcome to the forums!

Hopefully someone with a working ASR-33 comes along shortly. Mine sorta works, but it still needs some help.

Enjoy!
 
"shrdlu-junction" wrote:

Hard to think that I was so amazed when I typed

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 END

then typed
RUN

and the ASR33 came back with

HELLO

!

Really, I thought the good-ol':

Code:
[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]10 PRINT "HELLO"[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]20 GOTO 10[/FONT]

would have been more amusing! :-D

Or did the ASR33 return a Syntax Error in Line 20? Good if it did cause the 'GOTO' statement is the worst instruction, Really.
 
Those ASR 33s were popular back in 1967. I was taking a class in COBOL in 67 and they had a 33 sitting there. I programmed something to calculate the square root of a number to 90 decimal places and used the 33 for the printout. Was great fun! You would input the original number, it would sit there for about 1 minute, then start clacking out the answer. Unfortunately, the COBOL teacher got a better offer about 2 weeks into the course and he left. I ended up learning out to program "IBM Unit Record Equipment" (yes, those huge plug boards with thousands of wires going everywhere).

4 years later when I got out of college, ALL that knowledge was obsolete and useless! Well, except for how to program "fields" on the 029 keypunch. I ended up using that for a few years.

I too am 57 years old right now.
 
Damn Chuck. I didn't realise you were so elderly. Altho I wired the collator, interpreter boards and plumped the sorter cards which now seem to be designated as data processing machines, you seem to have bridged the gap had I not quit my job in 56. I thought many years later that had I hung in I could have been a computer icon. Possibly now an IT millionaire. You seem to have bridged that period when I was no longer involved in data processing.

I was briefly involved in 67 when I would record vocally all boxcars entering the railway marshalling yard and then enter on paper and transfer the data to the computer machine room guys.

Those ASR 33s were popular back in 1967. I was taking a class in COBOL in 67 and they had a 33 sitting there. I programmed something to calculate the square root of a number to 90 decimal places and used the 33 for the printout. Was great fun! You would input the original number, it would sit there for about 1 minute, then start clacking out the answer. Unfortunately, the COBOL teacher got a better offer about 2 weeks into the course and he left. I ended up learning out to program "IBM Unit Record Equipment" (yes, those huge plug boards with thousands of wires going everywhere).

4 years later when I got out of college, ALL that knowledge was obsolete and useless! Well, except for how to program "fields" on the 029 keypunch. I ended up using that for a few years.

I too am 57 years old right now.


Hmm. In 1982 I re-entered the IT field with a retraining course in digital electronics. It focused down to the component level the functioning of signals. Unfortunately, as I overheard some senior instuctors argue, component cards or modules were what Sony and other industry giants were now focusing on. I did finish the course and could have possibly got a job at Minolta or others as a junior electronic technician(assembler) at $7.00 an hour I declined since I was then getting $20.00 an hr and ridiculous 3x overtime as film(movie) crew. Even the sporadic film work gave me a much higher yearly income.

I don't know whether going into these various fields would have resulted in me now being a weathy man, but I doubt it. IT was a field of pirates, whether in design or programming. Your luck in grabbing the golden ring wasn't that much better than buying a lottery ticket, but with much more deleterious effects, should you lose. Kendal's end was almost sterioscopic.

Lawrence
 
I enjoyed the programming part of the job. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how "one" would have to become a supervisor, etc. as your pay increased. Also it was always a 24 hour job! I would get 3 a.m. phone calls almost from the day I started. That never changed.
 
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