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It was a few years later before I got my hands on a box.
But I had my own computer long before then.
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Marcus Kramer wrote: Boy, do I wish I had kept those
Take a look on ebay. I often get a surge of nostalga and would secretly like to start my own private collection of stuff from the 8 bit days, but be warned, things are nowhere near as good as you remember them. Tape-drive, wait five minutes for 20KB to load only to find the volume was bit too loud and you get some aggresive error message.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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With out degree, after finished a Diploma I came to my first job & that day all other people looked & smiled at me at the same time like in the movie Almost famous (because I was too young at that time[Even now, you can see me in my profile]). clickety[^](From 2:00 to 2:45).
I still remember their words from the past. "Hey check in that page kid", "Hey kid, don't be over smart", "Take care kid", "Never do that way...oops you right", etc.,  *Happiness* They have helped me a lot.
... I'm missing them..they are all in different location/countries by jobs. 
Will meet them soon in this year. 
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Life is changing, school, habits, social networking, I think that in ten years the new era of programmers will change this results drastically. I would like to see the same question in 10 years 
btw, I began with QBasic
luisnike19
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I could bear speak, but coding seemed such a natural way to express myself.
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Used a Teletype connected to the local college when I was at school, then onto a Research Machines 380Z, my first proper hands on machine.
ZX Spectrum and BBC to follow.
I also built a Northstar Polaris P1 in school.
This was all back in the Early 80's.
At college it was an IBM 370, then the early PC's before moving to an AS400.
After that it was windows all the way!
------------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC League Table Link
CCC Link[ ^]
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I started with an ASR33 Teletype with tape punch and reader and a 75 baud modem with acoustic couplers on a bakelite telephone. We used time share on a GEC mainframe in Manchester.
The input data files were punched on paper tape. If you forgot to punch 3 nulls after each carriage return and line feed, the head printed backwards over the previous line on its way back to the left-hand side. That must have been late 1979 or very early 80s. I was engineering a winding engine for a coal mine at the time.
When we got a 300 baud modem, hard-wired to the phone line, we thought it was the dogs b******s.
Then we got spoiled with an LSI11 actually in the office and glass VT100 terminals running at 2400 baud. Oh bliss!
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I remember those 380Z's - my mum brought one back from her school over a school holiday's and I started programming there.
After that, the ZX81, Spectrum and BBC's were, in a way, a step backward (I maybe didn't realise at the time), but the 380Z was more DOS-like than those older "home computers".
Also remember early experience with 370's and AS/400, thankfully by then I was already the PC-guy in the company (Turbo C++ and MS C 6.0), so didn't waste too much time on the RPG everyone else worked with. Did have to learn them enough to port some projects though, I still shudder at the memory of RPG.
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My first real computer was a Altair 8800[^] in 1977, I was in college and had just bought a nice slide rule for
one of my classes and bumped into one my teaches that said I could borrow this computer.
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Mike Hankey wrote: just bought a nice slide rule
I've still got two of those! (And I surprised myself by remembering how to use one)
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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Amazing little sticks. Mines been gone for years and it would be hard to replace I'm thinking, even if
I did have a notion to own one.
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You prompted me to check FleaBay, and not only can you buy one there easily, but I found the exact make and model of one of mine - at £29.99! I think this is one of the few times in my life when I have bought something, used it, and then could sell it for a profit... 
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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Now that amazes me not only did I not think you could purchase/find one anymore but to pay such a price?
Who would have thought? I think at the time I paid $7-$10 dollars for mine and only because I got a
better quality/fancy one.
The things that make you say hmmm, hmmm?
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It gets worse. Google "buy slide rule" and the first link is "Slide Rule World" http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/sliderule.html[^]
It's nice (but a little worrying) to know there are people more anal than yourself... 
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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Anal wouldn't have been the word I would have used but to be KSS that will work. I bet they also wear pocket protectors too.
Dang I believe the one I owned was the green K E in the left hand side bar here[^]. It's a small world ain't it?
Fresh off the WAYBACK machine. Just a few. Amazing, but true, we still have BRAND NEW slide rules. These are disappearing quickly.
Ugh?? (scratches head)
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Started in the third grade when a friend's mother converted a janitor's closet at the school to a PC lab with 5 TRS-80's in it. We went down in groups and did some logo and basic programming. Fun times, and what started me on this path. I would have been 8 going on 9. Jeez that's a long time ago.
He said, "Boy I'm just old and lonely,
But thank you for your concern,
Here's wishing you a Happy New Year."
I wished him one back in return.
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When I was in high school, there were no computer courses at all, yet the one course I took in grade 9 that has helped me the most in life was type writing. Learning the QWERTY keyboard is a skill that I still use today and helps me a lot. It wasn't until I was in University that computer courses were starting to be available. And even then I only took two courses.
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Who cares for courses? Programming ist like cooking and washing: Something to learn at home, not at school. 
This statement is false.
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I'm actually going to agree with you Corinna, though I'd qualify the agreement by saying it refers to today's programming environment. However back in 1972, the only two ways of learning programming were either on-the-job or at University and College.
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Only if you cook and wash for yourself and never for others.
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I can relate, Chris. I first started playing around with the TRS-80 at the back of the math classroom in 1980. That was my senior year in high school. I agree on the enduring value of the typing class. The school was filled with IBM Selectric typewriters and had one computer. Today the schools are filled with computers and nobody knows what a typewriter is. Funny how 3 decades changes things. What year was it you started?
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The typing class I took my senior year of high school (1983) used manual typewriters. It didn't take -- I type my own special way.
Member 110323 wrote: and had one computer
What was it? My school's was the PDP-11 that ran the town's whole school system.
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It was the TRS-80 in the math class room. The first computer I ever laid hands on.
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I was in HS in 1998, and we were still using typewriters for the typing class... I grew up in a poor school district
I didn't learn to type fast until it became a necessity of communicating in FPS and RTS games
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