HUMOR: How long have you been in this business?

[GeneNorman]

My first app was using a handheld programmer that showed one word at a time. Str not cr1! 1983

Gene

 

[WireGuy1950]

OLD!
DEC PDP-11
McGill PLC
Kaypro CPM Luggable (in the attic)
Cam Switches
Steppers
Pneumatic Logic
Real Relay Logic
Acoustic Modems
Sinclair PC
IBM XT (no hard drive)
Bit Hard Drives (10Mb)
GE timeshare computing
SloSyn "Servo" systems
Omron S5 w/tape backup
AB SLC-100
and more...

 

[jvdcande]

Only middle-aged (I hope!) at 45, but from my personal memory:

• Sinclair ZX81 (1k RAM)
• Sinclair ZX Spectrum (the 48k version)
• Commodore 64
• Philips PLC10
• Philips PC20, MC30

All of these only had audio tape to backup their programs.

The first 3.5" disks I've used were single-sided, single density so could hold only about 180kbyte, but costed me about US$ 7 at that time.

Kind regards,

 

[MarkTTU]

I was in the 3rd grade when the Challenger exploded. Since there were limited number of TVs at the school we won the lottery and were able to watch it live on TV in the classroom. When it exploded, the teacher turned the TV off, rolled it into the hall, then came back and tried to resume teaching as if nothing had happened. Still remember the tears in her eyes and her shaking.

I was in 5th grade and our class also won the lottery to get to watch live... I remember several minutes (probably 4-5) before anyone in the room spoke or moved; we were all in shock; then our teacher, shaking and obviously crying, left to get several of the other classes and teachers who had lost the 'lottery'. The rest of the day was spent watching that TV with something like 70 elementary kids in the room. I don't remember any of us scr#$ing around at all; we were all glued to that TV.

Obviously I wasn't alive for JFK, but my father has told me about sitting in class at Austin High when bunches of cop cars came tearing onto the school lawn to yank VIP's kids out of school...

Amazingly I've played with a lot of the stuff ya'll are talking about... Probably helped that my dad is as much of a tech-geek as I am.

First computer, Atari 1200XL with cassette tape drive - was great until it got hot and crashed.

First modem, 2400bps in a Tandy 1400LT... and I ran a BBS off that using 2 760k floppy drives. I remember my dad's office getting a computer with a 20MB hard drive around that same time; that thing was cool.

 

[OkiePC]

First computer, Atari 1200XL with cassette tape drive - was great until it got hot and crashed.

Man, I still miss my Atari 400. It would run for weeks without any problems...the cassette drive was another story...I wish modern computers were "READY>_" 2 seconds after powering up...

 

[rahulkumardave]

Started my career in Automation and Controls in 1997. Got experience in several countries like India, UK and USA. And now, the time to get settled in Canada (Calgary right now). Although, till now never found that frustating like here - as although having good work experience of precisely 9 years and 8 months, they say you must be a member of professional engineers' association to claim that you are an Engineer!! And most frustating is, they say the eligibility criteria to apply is minimum a year experience in Canada!! And most employers do not offer the job because you are not P.Eng!!!!!!
I really wonder what the hell they do different in Canada that they can't count your experience elsewhere?

 

[MarkTTU]

Man, I still miss my Atari 400. It would run for weeks without any problems...the cassette drive was another story...I wish modern computers were "READY>_" 2 seconds after powering up...

I feel the same about the 1200XL once it had appropriate cooling it worked great. My kids now complain of lousy graphics in some of their computer games and all I can think is that I had to write my first computer game. Times change...

 

[allscott]

I feel the same about the 1200XL once it had appropriate cooling it worked great. My kids now complain of lousy graphics in some of their computer games and all I can think is that I had to write my first computer game. Times change...

My first was a Commodore VIC20. Didn't know when we got it that some sort of storage was going to be a necessity. I remember spending hours typing in programs out of a computer magazine (I was about 10).

"FOR THE LOVE OF PETE DON'T SHUT THE COMPUTER OFF I HAVE A PROGRAM IN THERE!"

Had to cut a few lawns to save up for one of them fancy tape drives.

It paid of though, when I got to my first "computer" class in grade school I could type faster than the teacher and new more basic programming then she did.

 

[MarkTTU]

It paid of though, when I got to my first "computer" class in grade school I could type faster than the teacher and new more basic programming then she did.

Sounds familiar. High school computer class was quite fun; each week the teacher had a new security scheme to keep kids out of stuff they shouldn't be into and my assignment was to hack it and then tell him how I did it. The deal was once I cracked it I could do whatever I wanted during his class for the rest of the week... by the time that year was over he was getting pretty good and it usually took me the whole week... or sometimes into the first part of the next week

 

[MartB]

ZX80 was my first computer - it had 1KB of memory, and took forever to program. I remember typing in programs from magazines for hours and then cursing it all when it didn't work because I had made a typo somewhere in the previous 1000 instructions.

Oh the joys of computer programming!

Nothing much has changed really.

My first PLC was a Mitsi (can't remember the model), programmed by a clip on programmer and every instruction entered by hand. It didn't work, so we phoned tech support who talked me through the program over the phone, it took 2 hours to enter the program and debug it before we could all go home!

 

[TimothyMoulder]

I feel more contemporary now , pushing 37 this year.

In chronological order:
Commodore VIC-20
TI99/4A
CoCo 2, followed by a CoCo 3.
Commodore 128 (gosh, I miss them)
TRS-80 "portable" (bought it for the novelty factor) Built like a hat box, but worked perfectly.
Then I got my first home PC, a smoking Pentium 2...

I know I'm strange, but I get sentimental about old computers. I loved how we could do so much with so little. And adventure? Save your work to that crappy little tape drive and hope for the best... I put it right up there with skydiving after typing for ten hours...

I was in school when Challenger went up, the class was going to watch the launch that day and as a group we decided not to - we'd seen so many it was boring at that point. I think there's some kind of life lesson I learned that day, but I've never been able to put it into words.

TM

 

[R_Stone]

Somewhere I have a similar certificate, kind of dorky but I have kept it all these years. It has a little medallion glued to one side, that contains metal from the first craft to land on the moon.

Not to be picky, but the first manned spcaecraft (LM 3) to land on the moon did not come back so where would one get metal from it??

It's probably because I'm 52 sliding downhill fast. Started this in '75 in the Navy. Then nuclear power with TVA in the late '70s and early '80s. Now just trying to scrape out a living as a plant instrument engineer. I had a TI-994a with the expansion box and actually ran a TIBBS bulletin board system on two double sided floppies and a Hayes 300 smartmodem. My first PLC's were AB PLC2/30 at TVA's Gallatin Fossil Plant back in 1985.

These are the good old days.

Robert

 

[danw]

TRS-80 "portable" (bought it for the novelty factor) Built like a hat box, but worked perfectly. TM

If you're talking about the Model 100 laptop portable with the full size QWERTY keyboard and the 8 line dot matrix LCD display, guess who wrote the O/S ???

None other than Mr. Gates himself.

Great box. I could send telexes with its 300 buad modem from anywhere I could pick up a phone line. And being battery powered with its O/S in ROM, it turned on and was up and running in a second. One did have to buy AA batteries by the case though.

Dan

 

[jstolaruk]

I remember doing all of our technical documentation (manuals) on an Amiga in the mid 80s. We couldn't afford a PC and the Amiga could run a version of Word Perfect. The Amiga 500s were around $500 and that felt pretty cheap compared to the $4000+ IBM PC.

Lots of those old computers are actively being purchased by collectors.

 

[gas]

Old

You guys are all kids.
I was in my second year of college when Kennedy was shot. That was the first semester. In the second semester I studied vacuum tubes. We did work study with some of the "big three" auto plants so I did a lot of relay logic. The older guys were all excited about new programmable controllers that would eliminate rewiring cabinets for each new year.
I also studied girls and beer so that was the end of my formal education.