3 Jan
2012
3 Jan
'12
3:10 p.m.
----- Original Message:
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:11:52 +0000
From: Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com>
To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: RE: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to
kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC
From: MikeS
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:23 AM
> I think many if not most of the people on here
discovered that they
> enjoyed and had a gift for programming by playing with BASIC on their C64
> or equivalent
[snip]
I think that many if not most of the people on here
learned to program on
something other than BASIC. I, for example, learned FORTRAN IV on an IBM
1401 6 years before the MITS Altair 8800 was introduced to the world.
I did personally not encounter BASIC until I was in
grad school, on an IBM
370/168 running Wylbur for interactive computing. I was much more taken
with the DEC-20.
-------Reply:
You're probably right about this particular group where most people are old
enough to wax nostalgic about the DECs of their distant youth and many are
presumably retired as well since they have enough spare time to waste on
discussions like this one... ;-)
I personally started on an IBM 650 and then the very first Burroughs B260
installed in Canada, and didn't encounter BASIC either until I bought one of
the first PETs some 13 years or so later.
But I suspect many of the programmers actually writing code in the 'real'
world today are somewhat younger than 45 or 50, and did indeed start on an
8-bitter of the 70's and 80's when the whole field exploded.
m