|
|
Post by mknarr on Feb 29, 2020 9:28:40 GMT -5
This is an interesting topic to me. I started in the integrated circuit development department for Western Electric in the fall of 1966. By spring of 1967 I was programming in Basic on the Princeton computer for a program to calculate oxide thickness for the shop. At that time I thought it was "Princeton Basic" but I just did a search on "Princeton Basic" and found nothing. I now see Dartmouth Basic started in 1964 so I'm going to guess that was what I was using on the Princeton Computer by teletype. On Wikipedia I found the cheat sheet of commands and it sure looked like what I was using. Funny thing, it worked quite well but in a few years the "computer department" had to write it in some other language on our in house computers. Guess it was too simple for them. But I got revenge. By about 1972 or 3 a company built a machine that you just put the sample under a microscope, pushed a button and it spit out a printout of the oxide thickness. But I got back into programming when we got our first Wang "Desktop Calculator" and I became the go to guy in our engineering department because I was the only one with programming experience. And I never stopped programming since. Radio Shack Color Basic, TRs80, Quick Basic and LB since 2004. I looked at VB and said "No Thank you".
|
|
|
|
Post by tenochtitlanuk on Mar 1, 2020 4:22:19 GMT -5
Not dissimilar- 1964 I worked pre-university for a company serving the metals industry- machines that polished metal samples and specialised in growing single crystals, then used a TV camera ( !) to scan the analogue line-scans to calculate ratios of crystal size and dimensions. No computer power- just lots of transistors. Transistors still mostly germanium- silicon ones were yet to be economically on the market.
Actually did something similar with my school pupils twenty years or so later analysing leaf growth by analysing a computer image- the image sensor by then was a memory chip with the lid cracked off to allow visible light to deplete the cccd cells!
|
|
|
|
Post by sarossell on Mar 1, 2020 5:23:43 GMT -5
Not dissimilar- 1964 I worked pre-university for a company serving the metals industry- machines that polished metal samples and specialised in growing single crystals, then used a TV camera ( !) to scan the analogue line-scans to calculate ratios of crystal size and dimensions. No computer power- just lots of transistors. Transistors still mostly germanium- silicon ones were yet to be economically on the market. Actually did something similar with my school pupils twenty years or so later analysing leaf growth by analysing a computer image- the image sensor by then was a memory chip with the lid cracked off to allow visible light to deplete the cccd cells! Holy crap! It's amazing what technology has become since then, eh? |
|
|
|
Post by Walt Decker on Nov 30, 2020 18:15:58 GMT -5
This is different. I am not an LB coder, although about 20 - 25 years ago I did code in LB and made some DLLs for LB in a different language. Most of my coding now is done in Power Basic with some in C and a bit in assembler. I am not a pro, just a retired engineering geologist trying to keep my mind a little bit sharp.
Back then there was a lady named Alice Watson. I she still active in the LB community?
Just for grins, I will probably purchase LB around Christmas time.
|
|
|
|
Post by David Drake on Dec 1, 2020 13:35:55 GMT -5
This is different. I am not an LB coder, although about 20 - 25 years ago I did code in LB and made some DLLs for LB in a different language. Most of my coding now is done in Power Basic with some in C and a bit in assembler. I am not a pro, just a retired engineering geologist trying to keep my mind a little bit sharp. Back then there was a lady named Alice Watson. I she still active in the LB community? Just for grins, I will probably purchase LB around Christmas time. We last heard from Alyce about a year ago. She was busy with other things that kept her from being active in the community. |
|
|
|
Post by Walt Decker on Dec 6, 2020 10:11:43 GMT -5
Mr. Drake, are you the man of Power Basic?
|
|
|
|
Post by xxgeek on Nov 7, 2021 14:22:00 GMT -5
Hi everyone, my story starts about 40 years ago in the middle of winter looking for something new to do indoors, to keep from getting on the wifes' nerves. I bought a RadioShack TRS-80 with 8kb of ram($999.00), soon updated it to 16k by piggybacking the extra 8kb chip on top of the existing one. The processor was a 6809e from Motorola running at .89mhz (yeah, less than 1 mhz) blazing fast  The e of 6809e was a new model at the time, and gave extra oomf to the processor by doubling the speed to twice .89 = 1.78 if it was working on "Math" It had a built in Basic rom, which I quickly updated to the Basic rom 2 with extra graphics commands. No storage, so if I turned it off, I lost everything I was working on. I installed an led so I could tell if it was on/off. A friend with a Vic 20 and I, mostly the friend, took a cassette player, and turned it into a storage device From there I bought the EDITASM(I think that's what they called it) a hardware pluggin rom cartridge, to do assembly. Then after a few years Windows was born, so I got into windows on a 286, or maybe it was a 386. hacked my way around windows for years. Took about 15 years off, stayed away from computers, and worked my butt of taking all the overtime I could get.(as a Heat Treater, programming vacuum furnaces to heat treat aircraft engine parts etc.) Then, found a forum about speeding up Windows, the PC and internet speed. Stayed there for over 20 years, still a member. In those years, for 4 of them, Microsoft gave me the MVP award from out of the blue, for helpng users fix windows when they were having problems, among many other help topics. Many a batch file written in those years, along with dabbling in just about every other popular programming language out there. Always built my own PC's from scrapped parts back then too. Then about a 12 year break while I enjoyed riding my bike around the country. Somewhere along the line I got old, and riding hurts my back, so short trips are now the thing. Just Basic became a passion about a year ago. I've written many little apps, and a few large ones since, and love it for it's easy learning curve. Liberty Basic is on my list of things to do. |
|
|
|
Post by David Drake on Feb 18, 2022 13:01:33 GMT -5
Mr. Drake, are you the man of Power Basic? Just saw this post from over a year ago. Nope, I'm not the man of Power BASIC. |
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Feb 18, 2022 13:13:49 GMT -5
Mr. Drake, are you the man of Power Basic? Just saw this post from over a year ago. Nope, I'm not the man of Power BASIC. Unless there is some other person that I am not familiar with, the late Bob Zale was the creator of PowerBASIC. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASIC |
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Feb 18, 2022 14:01:42 GMT -5
Just saw this post from over a year ago. Nope, I'm not the man of Power BASIC. Unless there is some other person that I am not familiar with, the late Bob Zale was the creator of PowerBASIC. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBASICAh, I see. Adam Drake is the current developer of PowerBASIC. I've only ever used the DOS version of PowerBASIC, but I will say that I really enjoyed using it. |
|
|
|
Post by Walt Decker on Feb 21, 2022 9:27:37 GMT -5
Yes, Adam Drake purchased Power Basic over 5 years ago. There has been no changes to the language in that time and I think the language is dead.
I am currently brushing up on the first human readable language, FORTRAN, my first language over 50 years ago.
|
|
bplus
Full Member
Posts: 123
|
Post by bplus on Feb 21, 2022 12:28:36 GMT -5
Yes, Adam Drake purchased Power Basic over 5 years ago. There has been no changes to the language in that time and I think the language is dead. I am currently brushing up on the first human readable language, FORTRAN, my first language over 50 years ago. Ahh yes with punch cards right? I remember that and COBOL on punch cards and Unix Basic on "dummy terminals", interesting choice of name  |
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Feb 21, 2022 22:02:29 GMT -5
Yes, Adam Drake purchased Power Basic over 5 years ago. There has been no changes to the language in that time and I think the language is dead. I am currently brushing up on the first human readable language, FORTRAN, my first language over 50 years ago. Ahh yes with punch cards right? I remember that and COBOL on punch cards and Unix Basic on "dummy terminals", interesting choice of name  I remember the term as 'dumb terminal', but not sure it's an improvement.  |
|
|
|
Post by Walt Decker on Feb 22, 2022 16:32:52 GMT -5
My employment place did not have "dumb terminals." If I wanted to use the CDC 5000 computer the data had to be on punch cards. It was faster to perform most standard calculations by hand. Programs were also on punch cards.
Most of the computer geeks were versed in binary, assembler, COBAL, and FORTRAN. They regarded BASIC as a childs' language. I could get my head around assembler, but when it came to binary programming I was completely lost.
|
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Feb 22, 2022 22:27:14 GMT -5
My employment place did not have "dumb terminals." If I wanted to use the CDC 5000 computer the data had to be on punch cards. It was faster to perform most standard calculations by hand. Programs were also on punch cards. Most of the computer geeks were versed in binary, assembler, COBAL, and FORTRAN. They regarded BASIC as a childs' language. I could get my head around assembler, but when it came to binary programming I was completely lost. I never used punch cards, but I worked in manufacturing where we used punch paper tape to store CNC machining programs, and we learned to read these binary numbers and routinely spliced the tapes to edit the programs, which was only worth doing on really long programs. The only assembly language I did was on my VIC-20. I wrote some code in 6502 assembly and then translated it into machine code by hand. Dumb terminals? I had lots of experience with those in the 80's and 90's. Nothing recently. |
|
