I'm a few years behind you, it was 78 or 79 and I was in 5th grade, our teacher ponied up out of pocket and set up a pair of TRS-80 Model I's... 4K RAM... Level II BASIC... I had a box full of C-60 Supertape GOLD cassettes for CSAVE/CLOAD usage
Had a Teletype in my apartment back in the 80's when I worked at CMU (work from home!!!). Had to return it because it was too loud (neighbors not happy). Life got better with the Zenith Z19 terminal (light as a feather and no noise!!!)
I was a senior in HS in 1973-1974 in Colby, KS, and the math teacher offered independent study in computer programming. We wrote Fortran programs and used an IBM-26 keypunch at the local community college to create card decks. Then, we drove around 100 miles to Fort Hayes State University, whose computer center let us use their IBM 1401 to run the programs. We’d mount the Fortran compiler disk pack, stack our programs cards on the card reader along with some bootstrap cards and punch the LOAD button. The bootstrap cards would load the Fortran compiler from disk, which would read our program cards, and the line printer would print the results. If there was a problem, we used the comp center’s keypunch to make corrections an try agin.
Well I didn't think you were a nerd although I'm not sure that I would've used that word back then. I could swear there was a plotter back there - it that the thing on the left?
I think maybe it is! There was various equipment in and out of there over time, including some amazing programmable calculators. Rick Blair would remember those kinds of details better than I.
This evoked memories for me! I was a 5th grader in 1980, and vividly remember writing short BASIC programs by filling bubbles on card stacks. The cards were then sent downtown to be processed. We eagerly awaited the printouts and were disappointed when an error came back, meaning another try and another wait. When I got to junior high, we had a couple of TRS-80s in the classroom (affectionately referred to as Trash-80s), and that changed the game: instant gratification! (Except when I tried to save my BASIC program onto a cassette drive. No gratification there.)
Your two day turnaround was much better than our turnaround. In Seattle we also shared the district's computer. We would submit our programs on Friday, and they would deliver the results back to us the next Friday. The normal result would be a silly syntax error like: "M is not valid for a floating point variable". We would go fix the error and then submit the following Friday. We didn't get much accomplished. :-)
I'm a few years behind you, it was 78 or 79 and I was in 5th grade, our teacher ponied up out of pocket and set up a pair of TRS-80 Model I's... 4K RAM... Level II BASIC... I had a box full of C-60 Supertape GOLD cassettes for CSAVE/CLOAD usage
unlimited 1.77MHz power
Level II BASIC was TIGHT!
Had a Teletype in my apartment back in the 80's when I worked at CMU (work from home!!!). Had to return it because it was too loud (neighbors not happy). Life got better with the Zenith Z19 terminal (light as a feather and no noise!!!)
Oh yes! Eventually at school we got a Hazeltine “glass terminal.” It was silent, very cool, and much coveted.
At that time (80's) we had so many different terminals - every department was different Lots of VT52's and VT100's. CMU was a heavy DEC shop. Then IBM came along : - ) https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/10/20/Carnegie-Mellon-University-and-IBM-Wednesday-signed-an-agreement-to/9475403934400/
I was a senior in HS in 1973-1974 in Colby, KS, and the math teacher offered independent study in computer programming. We wrote Fortran programs and used an IBM-26 keypunch at the local community college to create card decks. Then, we drove around 100 miles to Fort Hayes State University, whose computer center let us use their IBM 1401 to run the programs. We’d mount the Fortran compiler disk pack, stack our programs cards on the card reader along with some bootstrap cards and punch the LOAD button. The bootstrap cards would load the Fortran compiler from disk, which would read our program cards, and the line printer would print the results. If there was a problem, we used the comp center’s keypunch to make corrections an try agin.
That's a great description. I never got to actually load and run punch cards. I think I saw the school district's computer twice.
Well I didn't think you were a nerd although I'm not sure that I would've used that word back then. I could swear there was a plotter back there - it that the thing on the left?
I think maybe it is! There was various equipment in and out of there over time, including some amazing programmable calculators. Rick Blair would remember those kinds of details better than I.
This evoked memories for me! I was a 5th grader in 1980, and vividly remember writing short BASIC programs by filling bubbles on card stacks. The cards were then sent downtown to be processed. We eagerly awaited the printouts and were disappointed when an error came back, meaning another try and another wait. When I got to junior high, we had a couple of TRS-80s in the classroom (affectionately referred to as Trash-80s), and that changed the game: instant gratification! (Except when I tried to save my BASIC program onto a cassette drive. No gratification there.)
Your two day turnaround was much better than our turnaround. In Seattle we also shared the district's computer. We would submit our programs on Friday, and they would deliver the results back to us the next Friday. The normal result would be a silly syntax error like: "M is not valid for a floating point variable". We would go fix the error and then submit the following Friday. We didn't get much accomplished. :-)