Member Avatar for kasmar45

Hello,

My name is George, but many call me kasmar45. I am 78 years old and long retired. I have worked in the IT business for 50 years. I started out wiring and operating tab equipment. IE (403, 407, 604, sorter, etc, etc. Then I got a job operating a 305 Ramac. That was fun. My next job I operated a 1401 computer. It had 4k of usable memory. How could you write a program with only 4k of memory you might ask. Well back in those days code was written in line, started at the top and finished at the bottom. Our devs programmed in assembler. When a program was started it read the first 4k into memory from the ram file, and when it came to the end of that it it read in the next 4k, etc, etc. Thats a simplfied explanation. I ended up my career doing app support at pick systems. I code today as a hobby.

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Member Avatar for Dani

Hey there, and welcome to DaniWeb! There are a handful of old timers around here. Feel free to browse around and hope to see you around.

Member Avatar for Reverend Jim

There are a handful of old timers around here.

I'm one. Welcome to Daniweb.

Member Avatar for kasmar45

thank you.

Member Avatar for JamesCherrill

Welcome - and please accept, with my compliments, the mantle of "Oldest Old Timer". That was me, until you joined, but at only 73 and never having programmed in less than 16k (IBM 1130) you trump my stats convincingly.
Like you I still code as a hobby (and to help people who post problems here). I hope that it will help to keep my brain active longer, but who knows?
Cheers
James

Member Avatar for kasmar45

Thankyou James. I have had a long and varied career. I never programmed the 1401. I didn't learn assembler for some years after working with the 1401. My first taste of programming was a language called Fortran. The thing I remember most about fortran was the setting of switchs. Basic was the first language I truly enjoyed, because it was simple ad easy to use. It has grown up today, but is still the easiest language for this old brain to use. Java is a close second. C# would be second if it wasn't for all those semi-colins. ;;;; ha ha.

I am working on a calculator program right now and if I ever get it done I will share it withj the community.

Edited by kasmar45
Member Avatar for Dani

For me, born in 1982, it's been (roughly) ...

4 years old = BASIC on an Apple IIGS
10 years old = QBASIC on an IBM-compatible PC
13 years old = Visual Basic 4.0 on Windows 3.1
15 years old = VB5 on Windows 95
16 years old = C++ on Windows 98
19 years old = Java, and more advanced C++ / Went through a Red Hat Linux phase for a couple years in college
20 years old = PHP (when I started DaniWeb with it in 2002!)

Have now been running DaniWeb for the past two decades, and haven't looked back from PHP. My fiance works at Apple, so now I've been required to be an Apple person.

Member Avatar for Reverend Jim

My first taste of programming was a language called Fortran

Except for a smattering of self-taught BASIC, FORTRAN (actually WATFOR - Waterloo FORTRAN) was my first. After learning several other languages I ended up spending the next 18 years programming mostly in FORTRAN interspersed with various flavours of Assembler. I wouldn't touch java or C# if you paid me.

Aside from FORTRAN, BASIC and Assembler I have also programmed in vbScript, vb.Net, APL and Python.

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