CuriousChord
Member
Apologies for the less than timely intro here. Better late than never, I hope.
My first exposure to computers was in tenth grade (c. 1979), when we learned BASIC programming. Many fond memories of flowcharts, If-Then statements, and For-Next loops. The teacher had a TRS-80 and loved to gloat about what seemed a distant, far-away possibility for us students--a home computer, gee whiz! He even brought it into class to show off. But the real fun was field trips to the central "computer" school, so that we could run programs via the big punch-card reader. Fill in the holes with magic marker first, then punch them out with a paper clip.
After that, early 80s, it was college and a micro system linked to Dartmouth. More BASIC, no punchcards. Introduction to Colossal Cave.
After that, into the workforce c. 1985, and it was the realm of the Pr1me micro system. More BASIC, and conversations about assembly language and Fortran with the programmers.
Fast forward to the mid-90s. Still no personal computer at home, but there was growing awareness and presence of Macs and PCs at the office, plus Mom and Dad (both teachers) had an Apple ][ (or maybe a IIc) at home. However, all those years of hanging with programmers paid off as I became a system engineer. Mission: replace the aging Pr1me micro system with a new database-driven off-the-shelf system for managing geospatial information, with an SGML component for desktop publishing. Fun! And finally, c. 1997, Windows 95 at home!
But it wasn't meant to last. The new system procurement was troubled. So a fortuitous career move to system management for office automation (and the last days of the Pr1me micro) was in order. Lots of fun with a zero budget, raiding piles of warehoused 486s for SIMMs and seeing which computers could handle Win NT (3.51, then 4.0). Hence the interest in tinkering.
Fast forward to January 2009. Mother-in-law donates WinME machine "for the kids to play games." There are challenges. But a tinker here, and a tinker there, and a few Google searches later, challenges overcome. Still there was the memory of tinkering fun. And there was a brother's old Gecco 486 in storage. And there was the promise of multiple towers for $20 on craigslist. Hmmm....
Hence some posts here.
My first exposure to computers was in tenth grade (c. 1979), when we learned BASIC programming. Many fond memories of flowcharts, If-Then statements, and For-Next loops. The teacher had a TRS-80 and loved to gloat about what seemed a distant, far-away possibility for us students--a home computer, gee whiz! He even brought it into class to show off. But the real fun was field trips to the central "computer" school, so that we could run programs via the big punch-card reader. Fill in the holes with magic marker first, then punch them out with a paper clip.
After that, early 80s, it was college and a micro system linked to Dartmouth. More BASIC, no punchcards. Introduction to Colossal Cave.
After that, into the workforce c. 1985, and it was the realm of the Pr1me micro system. More BASIC, and conversations about assembly language and Fortran with the programmers.
Fast forward to the mid-90s. Still no personal computer at home, but there was growing awareness and presence of Macs and PCs at the office, plus Mom and Dad (both teachers) had an Apple ][ (or maybe a IIc) at home. However, all those years of hanging with programmers paid off as I became a system engineer. Mission: replace the aging Pr1me micro system with a new database-driven off-the-shelf system for managing geospatial information, with an SGML component for desktop publishing. Fun! And finally, c. 1997, Windows 95 at home!
But it wasn't meant to last. The new system procurement was troubled. So a fortuitous career move to system management for office automation (and the last days of the Pr1me micro) was in order. Lots of fun with a zero budget, raiding piles of warehoused 486s for SIMMs and seeing which computers could handle Win NT (3.51, then 4.0). Hence the interest in tinkering.
Fast forward to January 2009. Mother-in-law donates WinME machine "for the kids to play games." There are challenges. But a tinker here, and a tinker there, and a few Google searches later, challenges overcome. Still there was the memory of tinkering fun. And there was a brother's old Gecco 486 in storage. And there was the promise of multiple towers for $20 on craigslist. Hmmm....
Hence some posts here.