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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : age
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Mixtel90 Guru  Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 5726 |
I'll be 71 in August. As a kid I used to dream of owning a computer - lol. At that time they were the big cabinets, cards, whirly tapes etc. My first full-time apprenticeship got me a tour of the offices, where I saw my first real computer - big cabinets, cards etc. :). Much later I read an article in a magazine about the 4004 and 4040 chips, and managed to get a manual for the 4040 with the intention of building a board with one on. Unfortunately they (and the RAM) turned out to be too expensive. Later still I got the Nascom-1, where I really got the bug for hardware (it came as a self-assembly kit and a bare PCB.). It grew quite a bit, with EPROM and RAM extensions. I could never afford the Nascom-2 though. I did get my introductions to *) assembly and BASIC though, eventually getting Xtal BASIC, which had user-extendible commands and finally Nascom Basic (a version of Microsoft BASIC) on ROM. After that it was the ZX81 and TRS-80 (with my first floppy drives). Then the Speccy (which ran a little bulletin board using microdrives for storage - it was called MIXTEL for Mick's Telephone!). After that it was PCs of various varieties and OSs. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| Amnesie Guru Joined: 30/06/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 381 |
It seems to be that I am the youngest person on this forum  I am turning 35 this year. Before I ever heard of BASIC and it's dialects I learned a bit C in university (EE). But I remember playing with Visual Basic on my first computer in the late 90's (without knowing it has something to do with BASIC). What caugth my attention (or directed me to MMBASIC) was an old book I got from my dad, named: "Mikroelektronik in der Amateurpraxis" from the former German "Democratic" Republic, in which you can build your own computer based on a Z80 clone. After asking google about BASIC, I was directed to this forum and to the geoff website. Just to find out it is still alive and even more capable  Greetings Daniel |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 5726 |
I'd been programming PIC chips using the Great Cow Basic compiler (which I still love) and found MMBasic by happy accident because of the Micromite. It's cheaper to buy a YD-RP2040 complete rather than most PIC chips now. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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Martin H. Guru Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: GermanyPosts: 896 |
my "career" My first contact with computers was with a Commodore PET in the showroom of a retailer. However, the prices were far above what I could have afforded. Thats why my first own computer was a ZX81 kit and later logically the ZX Spectrum. You may think what you want about those computers but I learned BASIC according to the ZX 81 Manual. My brother-in-law owned a Dragon 32. There I started writing 6809 machine code programs (i.e. translate OPCodes into hex values with pencil and paper). Later I switched to a Sinclair QL and then Atari ST (GFA Basic). From the mid-90s then PC hardware. From then on, my programming was limited to VB or VBA(EXCEL). I was Born 1961 so I am 61 now. After a heart attack and kidney cancer, my physical capacity is limited, but that does not prevent me from realizing ideas. I am glad to have found Picomite as a new/old challenge Mart!n (61) Edited 2023-01-23 19:30 by Martin H. 'no comment |
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CaptainBoing Guru Joined: 07/09/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1985 |
snap. ccRCC is a right cow - stay well. |
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| PeterB Guru Joined: 05/02/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 639 |
G'Day you lot. 85 for the moment and have been slowing down for a couple of years. After my apprenticeship which was all valves I worked as a very junior tech on Australia's first (or second) digital computer. It used transistors ???. And it ran at 5MHz and I didn't understand very much about it. I have always been more hardware than software but I did like 8085, Z80, 16F?? using assembly because it is close to hardware. Uni. tried me on FORTRAN IV, you would have to be kidding. All those different coloured cards in strict sequence and then waiting for the results to turn up. Sorry to go on about it but it has been a lot of fun and you hang in there CB. Peter |
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| paceman Guru Joined: 07/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1326 |
Well, I'm the same as Geoff, 74 now, genuine baby boomer. My computer background started in 1969 during my six year part-time metallurgy cadetship in Tasmania trying to use full Fortran 4 on an IBM 370 via the 2780 terminal. The best part was the room full of girls doing the punched card and verifier work. Worst part was submitting a stack of cards to run overnight and then finding the two or three simple format errors in the morning and having to do it all over again. Forward to late '73 and it was Basic and Forth (I think) on a Digico computer (older Brits might remember them) hooked up to an ASR33 paper punch terminal in turn hooked up to a large lab XRF analyser used to control pot additions at the smelter - full smelter chemistry control using paper tape!! Amazingly, it worked - but not well :( Next effort was a training week at uni ('75 I think) using machine code to frequency sync a little Motorola 6800 PIA card (that's 6800, not 68000) to the Tasmanian electricity grid. Luckily Jim (TassieJim) didn't have to sort the mess out. My effort was considered sub-par and was left on the bench. I managed to get an audiotape loader working on that 6800 system. It was hugely unreliable but I thought I'd done well. Onto bigger things and it was solo night-shifts on an IBM1800 24K core memory !!! process control computer - about 3x1x2 meters size with lots of flashing bootloader lights and switches. This was developing the world's first automated aluminium smelter process control system and my very important job was to compile lots of tiny programs written in Fortran or Assembler by the much more clever project control people including the big Texan IBM project leader. The sequence was: Set the bootloader switches, load the short binary loader paper tape, press Go, load the compiler paper tape (rather larger), press Go, finally load dozens of short subroutine tapes, press Go for each one and make sure the ASR33 was still loaded with tape as each little routine was punched out - at ten characters/sec. Next, more boot switch work, load the linker tape then load all the little punched tape compiled routines in correct sequence (neatly ordered in a shoebox) and press Go. Next sit by the ASR paper punch for half an hour while the linked program tape was rattled out. About one time in four the loaded tape would finally run - the other three times the ASR would have punched an error 'somewhere' in the tape so do it all again! Eventually it all worked and they'd replaced the paper tape with hugely expensive monster discs, might have been all of 100K or so! Onward to a Tektronix 4051 vector graphics terminal/computer, using Tektronix real-time Basic. That was a fun machine, no anti-aliasing required for beautiful straight lines in any direction - but unfortunately all in phosphor green. The real job for it was to develope occupational health spirometry software using the HP Fleisch (flow) head and then put it all into a useable database for a new smelter the company was planning. That morphed into a DEC PDP11 RT11 OS based system at the new smelter in 1981. I moved to Q'ld and took over the lab and for a year or so had fun setting up the lab and writing some real time Fortran for the lab PDP11. That was hooked up to four large spectrometers (OEx2, XRF and XRD) and remote terminals but once the employee count hit 20 I had to concede the programming fun to one of my much geekier chemists. I was good at fixing electronic and optical faults in the spectrometers though and that interest stayed with me through the '90's as a project leader in the Melbourne research labs. The '90's were all IBM PC days and my computer use was pretty much limited to MS 'Office' suite work for research reports. I took out a subscription for Silicon Chip in 2008 and not too long after Geoff wrote the first Maximite article. I built one, then joined TBS. I've built most of its successors since then and been following the TBS forum ever since. Geoff and Peter have produced a brilliant platform and Glenn has been running TBS for around twenty years I'd guess. That's a great body of work and I thank them and the other members of the forum for the enjoyment I've had and am still having. Greg |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3658 |
66 A ridiculous number of computers, OSes, languages, such as ICL-1900, IBM 360, PDP-11, VAX-11, 8080/etc, 8086/etc, 68000, ARM, PIC32 George 2 & 3, DOS/360, DOS-11, RT-11, RSX-11M, UNIX, CP/M, MS-DOS, Windows, Apollo Domain, HP-UX, Linux FORTRAN IV, (ICL)PLAN, (IBM 360)ASM, COBOL, various BASICs & Algols (60, 68, W), LISP, C & C++, MACRO-11, MACRO-32, TECO, ASM80, ASM86, PL/M & -86, Pascal, BCPL, Smalltalk, Perl, Clipper 5, Java, Python, C# John |
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| okwatts Regular Member  Joined: 27/09/2022 Location: CanadaPosts: 51 |
In this world I am a rank newbie. In the real world I'm 73, did Fortran in University on school mainframe, spent a little time doing seismic work for Chevron and got more interested in data processing. Went back to school and as part of M.Sc. degree used Data General for data analysis at TRIUMF. While working in a cancer center worked using various computers, time share, DG mini's and introduced to micros with a KIM-1. Implemented Floppy disk controller, bought Tom Pittmans Tiny Basic on paper tape. Later between hobby and work used 6502 Basic, OS9 on CC3, Atari ST, PC using Turbo Pascal and always some Fortran. In the 90's discovered Linux then python, never programmed for a career but did some Systems Admin. Retired and took up Arduino and various other microcontrollers then rediscovered 6502, dragged out the SYM-1 and built a few SBC's from folks in the 6502.org forum. Followed the Raspberry Pi from original 256MB Model B to latest and got a few Pico's after seeing a BBC emulator for it on YouTube. Had followed Color Micromite through the 8-bit guy. Ended up here for the PicoMite. When asked what I do with all that I say "I'm playing with computers from 40 years ago on todays hardware". |
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karlelch Senior Member  Joined: 30/10/2014 Location: GermanyPosts: 155 |
55 soon Fond memories of BASIC, first TI 994/A, then Microsoft BASIC on IBM PC/AT ... The "boot into the BASIC prompt" feeling of the PicoMite really brings back memories :-) Trying to convince people at work that for some projects, MMBasic is an option, but with little success. Python dominates at work. Thomas |
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| toml_12953 Guru Joined: 13/02/2015 Location: United StatesPosts: 326 |
67. I started with BASIC on a Wang 3300 minicomputer in 1970 in high school then in 1975 when I ordered all the manuals for the Altair 8800 (a poor college student couldn't afford a full system) then got a subscription to Kilobaud, Byte, Interface Age and Creative Computing magazines to learn everything I could. In September, 1978 I finally took delivery on a 16K TRS-80 Level II machine. It would have been a few months later but someone in the queue backed out and the manager asked me if I wanted to be moved up. YES!!! From there I went to an early Commodore 64 that never worked reliably (it turned out to be an engineering sample) then to a TI-99/4A. I got disgusted when TI left the market so abruptly so I decided to buy from a company that would stay in the business. I bought an IBM PCjr!! So much for my brilliant analysis of the market. Then a Radio Shack Color Computer, a Wells American AT clone, and then a number of beige boxes, all alike. Now I collect old computers and emulators such as the PiDP-8 and PiDP-11, the AltairDuino, the Color MM2, and a few Raspberry Pi 4. I also still have the TRS-80 only now it's fully expanded with an EI, 48K RAM, lowercase, double density, four floppy drives, serial port, printer, etc. I also have a TRS-80 Model 4D, the last in the TRS-80 line. Edited 2023-01-24 06:22 by toml_12953 |
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| k2backhoe Regular Member Joined: 04/12/2021 Location: United StatesPosts: 41 |
74 soon IBM-1620 machine language (it was never called assembler back then) and Fortran in college PDP-11 / PDP-8 assembler and Fortran IMSAI 8800 hosting 8080 assembly, Microsoft Basic (legally purchased), Fortran from a small start-up Wrote K2FDOS for custom 8" floppy disks because CP-M wasn't out yet (very rudimentary, but it gave me a file system and multi-pass assembly) in Grad School Linux and C and LOTS of MATLAB for 35 years as GE-Research Physicist Lots of Intel 8051 code, TI TMS320 (first(?) DSP), C++, ADA (yech), LISP never proficient with those last 3. Now it's almost all MATLAB (home version), and for the last year+ lots and lots of fun with Pico Basic. Edited 2023-01-24 06:27 by k2backhoe |
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| ville56 Regular Member Joined: 08/06/2022 Location: AustriaPosts: 68 |
66 and counting ... My career in about that sequence Fortran IV, PL/1, Assembler for i4004, NS SC/MP, PDP-8, PDP-11, 8080/8085, VAX-11. Again some high level languages like DEC Basic, VAX Basic, Clipper 5, tons of DCL scripts (DEC), a little bit of C/C++, VBA mostly for Ecxel. Later BASCOM/AVR as a hobby. Besides that i've written a Basic like, interpretative, language for an automatic test equipment for PABXes on PDP-11. The transaction control language which i wrote later for DEC/VAX was less Basic like but more successful in production. Interstingly, i never had any respect for 'toys' like Commodore or Atari computers. Even though friends showed me very impressive apps they did develop on these gadgets. Now i'm fooling around with basically the same "boot into basic" stuff and i'm proud about what i can accomplish with it. On the other hand, if you take the raw computing power of a Pico into account and rethink what was available at Commodore/Atari times ... I think it would easily outperform our good old VAX-11/780 running with 1 MIPS, even though the VAX was a CISC machine and could work on 3 adresses in one instruction cycle. And if you think about the price drop. That VAX caused me a lot of convincing of our CEO to get it, tons of slides. A Pico can be bought without consulting the HFO (home financial officer). Times are a changing and technology really has made some huge leaps. Would be great to see what the next 40 years will bring. Gerald 73 de OE1HGA, Gerald |
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| LouisG Senior Member Joined: 19/03/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 121 |
82 and a confirmed serial late bloomer. Everything happened late: education, marriage, kids, profession, retirement (if you could call it that). I missed out on the 80s era of boot to Basic but luckily got pretty familiar with DBaseIII+, a lot like BASIC. When Monochrome Micromite burst onto the scene I was sold on it. Presently I and two other retired engineers formed a start-up for developing a process for producing "green" metallic zinc powder from waste material. Our little pilot plant will begin operation in a few months hopefully. What is the control system? E64 and E100 of course - and virtually no spare I/O left. Wish us luck! Louis |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2870 |
Hi All, I am 64 years young. If Paul_L put his age on here we might increase the average exponentially. Hi Paul_L are you still reading the forum? .. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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jwettroth Regular Member Joined: 02/08/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 70 |
65 and going strong Professional 8085 assembly and PLM programmer in '82 for Nuclear Plant Radiation Monitoring Equipment (don't worry, I'm sure its all obsolete and in a dump somewhere...) Edited 2023-01-24 17:25 by jwettroth John Wettroth |
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| darthvader Regular Member Joined: 31/01/2020 Location: FrancePosts: 72 |
Very surprising !! At first i think i was one of the oldest here with close to 56  But as i see i'm one of the youngest ;) For me all started in 1981 with the ZX81 , then ZX Specrum , oric 1 , atmos , C64 , cpc 464 , and the best of all ... Amiga 500 ;) Then, every other computer up to now are just ugly PC  Regards, Darth. Theory is when we know everything but nothing work ... Practice is when everything work but no one know why ;) |
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| PeterB Guru Joined: 05/02/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 639 |
G'Day Darth et al. I'm not sure I was ever 56. Since I'm sure I started at about 0 and am now 85, simple maths indicates I went through 56 but I don't remember it. PaulL is much younger than me so am I the oldest? What a dreadful thought.  Peter |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 5726 |
Hehe... The Good Captain is appreciated here. :) So, come on, your turn. How old are you? Have you got sordid details of your computing "career" to tell us? Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| k2backhoe Regular Member Joined: 04/12/2021 Location: United StatesPosts: 41 |
So far  |
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