Guru
Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United KingdomPosts: 9128
| Posted: 02:33pm 25 Jul 2026 |
I've never been a programmer, except for a small number of jobs at work that involved programming PLCs. The only other programming I've ever done has been for recreation. A lot of that was because I wanted the computer to do something with its hardware, not messing about with databases or systems.
On the other hand, my Nascom-1 was something I had to build from a kit. Lots of ICs, a big blank PCB and a book on how to assemble it (we usually referred to it as "the easy book", the other book, on programming, was referred to as "the hard book"!). Then I had to build a power supply (+/- 5V and +/- 12V) for it, and eventually a rack system. I've always been much happier with the hardware, I find it easier to understand than programming, even in BASIC.
It's only in the last few years that I've discovered that there is such a thing as SQL. I've never used it and wouldn't know what to do with it if I tripped up over it. lol But to discover the Micromite, a 28-pin chip that does stuff like an expanded Nascom-1, then the PicoMite has been a revelation to me. To have all that GPIO capability supported by MMBasic is amazing to me.