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From: vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
Date: 29 Sep 2024 07:58:16 GMT
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On Sat, 28 Sep 2024 22:04:31 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in <vd9r10$1d6gq$4@dont-email.me>:

> On 28/09/2024 20:36, rbowman wrote:
>> On Sat, 28 Sep 2024 07:07:40 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>> 
>>> I got my start in high school with BASIC, keyed into a teletype and
>>> saved to paper tape.  (Later, I learned how to toggle code into the
>>> front panel of the PDP-8.)
>> 
>> I had a couple of brushes with BASIC. The IBM 5120 offered a choice of
>> BASIC or APL so that was a no-brainer. Later I did a follow-up with an
>> environmental test system. I had originally done the software for the
>> AT which was the master controller of a number of slaved XTs. (Sorry
>> DEI). The XTs had been programmed in BASIC by someone else. About 8
>> months after I left I cog a phone call asking if I could return to sort
>> the XTs out so it was back to Ft. Wayne.
>> 
>> I also wrote a preprocessor to convert BASIC to sort of  an IL and the
>> necessary run time but I was working in assembler rather than BASIC.
>> Interpreted BASIC wasn't exactly speedy. Not being a 'computer
>> scientist' I was fairly naive at the time and was working from a
>> directive 'speed this stuff up'.
> 
> The need to speed up BASIC was why I learnt Assembler...
> 
> Then I moved onto C, and that was the best of both worlds really

I grew up with BASIC, but played with 6502 assembler on
Apple ][+'s...

Once in high school -- armed with a copy of _Beneath Apple DOS_ -- I
patched the Corvus-enhanced DOS 3.3 to disallow changing volumes
with the "CATALOG" command.  (Previously, someone could type
something like "CATALOG V43", and end up in a different student's
volume.)

I used BASIC and assembler on 80186 processors in the Coast Guard,
which were Convergent Technologies CTOS machines, later "BTOS" when
Burroughs bought them.

Didn't learn C until I went back to school, starting on my own with
Microsoft's _Learn C Now_ -- it would let you write and execute programs,
but you couldn't save the compiled executables.

Then I dove into Unix (HPUX), downloaded Linux, built a
student-access Unix host with gcc -- oh, I knew enough
to be dangerous.  But we managed to navigate the troubled
waters of the early 1990's Internet, and managed to build
useful systems with sh, C, awk, and perl.

Technology transfer:  my business partner and I took what
we learned setting up and running the student-access Linux host,
and built a dialup shell provider. We became an ISP, which has
now been a CLEC for many years.  We sell 10 Gigabit fiber-to-the-home
now...it's a living.

-- 
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
   OS: Linux 6.11.0 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
   "(A)bort, (R)etry, (T)ake down entire network?"