my first BYTE into computers (was My first computer memory was ...)
I got my first taste for computers while still in the crib. I teethed on tape write rings! Despite my dad programming computers since the 50s, it took a friend to really kick-start my interest. Ryan Junior High school had 3 programmable calculators in the vice principal's office for "independent study": a pair of Compucorp 025 Educators and an Olivetti Programma 101. Steven Popper showed me how to program them and I was hooked! I thought it was awesome being able to teach a machine to follow my directions. A key turning point was learning conditional branching. Now the machine was making DECISIONS! [using an "if" statement may sound trivial but those programmable calculators were very limited that way]. I learned the Compucorp so well that I wrote another folder of self-learn exercises and tutored others! I always adored using teeny FiloFax loose-leaf binders because I can rearrange the pages. I still have that notebook with my first programs. Francis Lewis High school in Queens may not sound prestigious but in the mid 70s, it was quite the "magnet school" with special programs such as the Math-Science Institute. The best math teachers were recruited and that spring-boarded the school's success, becoming the first public high school to achieve International Baccalaureate accredation http://ferretronix.com/flewis/#ib_footnote The math department taught computer programming as if it were a science lab experiment. Learn something (such as calculating the area under a curve), do it by hand, and then get the computer to handle the tedium of more and more points. We started by sharing one HP 9820A https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9820.htm https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9820a.html Then we learned EDU-25 basic on the PDP8/e with 2 terminals (originally ASR33 teletypes, later ADM3A). Having our own PDP8/e was a big deal. Few schools had a computer in-house. The main computers were batch. Programs were keypunched onto cards, using IBM 029 keypunches. Operators (such as myself) ran the IBM 3777 RJE (Remote Job Entry) terminal: a card reader and line printer to a modem. https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/ibm-3777-mode... We dialed into 3 IBM mainframes: UAPC, MIDP or CCNY. Each was slightly different, requiring their own JCL (Job Control Language cards). Some ran HASP, others JES2. CCNY (City College of NY) had the student compilers: WATFIV, PL/C, SNOBOL, etc. UAPC (University Application Processing Center) was administration only: attendance, report cards, class scheduling. MIDP (Management Information Data Processing) was the board of education's mainframe, which was tolerable after the upgrade. I learned FORTRAN/WATFIV, PL/I, BAL, JCL and the operator commands among other things. The Cooper Union Computer Center was a PDP 11/45 running Unix version 6. What a joy to finally use INTERACTIVE TERMINALS (initially Olivetti teletypes, then ADM3A and Decwriters). Of course, K&R "C" was the main language. It was fun extending the Unix utilities with new features. I took ownership of the line printer system: LPR/LPD. See: http://ferretronix.com/cucc/ That's all for now!
Hello! Um, Jeffrey J, you get an extra bucket of points, and some chad if you can tell us who Francis Lewis was, oh and where he's buried. Hint: Think of July 4. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 10:16 PM Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I got my first taste for computers while still in the crib. I teethed on tape write rings!
Despite my dad programming computers since the 50s, it took a friend to really kick-start my interest.
Ryan Junior High school had 3 programmable calculators in the vice principal's office for "independent study": a pair of Compucorp 025 Educators and an Olivetti Programma 101. Steven Popper showed me how to program them and I was hooked! I thought it was awesome being able to teach a machine to follow my directions. A key turning point was learning conditional branching. Now the machine was making DECISIONS! [using an "if" statement may sound trivial but those programmable calculators were very limited that way]. I learned the Compucorp so well that I wrote another folder of self-learn exercises and tutored others!
I always adored using teeny FiloFax loose-leaf binders because I can rearrange the pages. I still have that notebook with my first programs.
Francis Lewis High school in Queens may not sound prestigious but in the mid 70s, it was quite the "magnet school" with special programs such as the Math-Science Institute. The best math teachers were recruited and that spring-boarded the school's success, becoming the first public high school to achieve International Baccalaureate accredation http://ferretronix.com/flewis/#ib_footnote
The math department taught computer programming as if it were a science lab experiment. Learn something (such as calculating the area under a curve), do it by hand, and then get the computer to handle the tedium of more and more points. We started by sharing one HP 9820A https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9820.htm https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9820a.html Then we learned EDU-25 basic on the PDP8/e with 2 terminals (originally ASR33 teletypes, later ADM3A). Having our own PDP8/e was a big deal. Few schools had a computer in-house.
The main computers were batch. Programs were keypunched onto cards, using IBM 029 keypunches. Operators (such as myself) ran the IBM 3777 RJE (Remote Job Entry) terminal: a card reader and line printer to a modem. https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/ibm-3777-mode...
We dialed into 3 IBM mainframes: UAPC, MIDP or CCNY. Each was slightly different, requiring their own JCL (Job Control Language cards). Some ran HASP, others JES2. CCNY (City College of NY) had the student compilers: WATFIV, PL/C, SNOBOL, etc. UAPC (University Application Processing Center) was administration only: attendance, report cards, class scheduling. MIDP (Management Information Data Processing) was the board of education's mainframe, which was tolerable after the upgrade. I learned FORTRAN/WATFIV, PL/I, BAL, JCL and the operator commands among other things.
The Cooper Union Computer Center was a PDP 11/45 running Unix version 6. What a joy to finally use INTERACTIVE TERMINALS (initially Olivetti teletypes, then ADM3A and Decwriters). Of course, K&R "C" was the main language. It was fun extending the Unix utilities with new features. I took ownership of the line printer system: LPR/LPD. See: http://ferretronix.com/cucc/
That's all for now!
"Careful! That TARDIS is an heirloom!", said the Doctor to a grouping of Guards who didn't want to believe that.
On 5/28/21 5:40 PM, Gregg Levine via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Hello! Um, Jeffrey J, you get an extra bucket of points, and some chad if you can tell us who Francis Lewis was, oh and where he's buried. Hint: Think of July 4.
Bad joke: Grant's Tomb? -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Hello! Nope! The school is named after the only member of the Constitutional Congress that wrote our documents from Queens. That's who Francis Lewis was. The chad was a reference to what punched cards produce, and the bucket of points is indeed the bad joke. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Fri, May 28, 2021 at 11:08 PM Neil Cherry <ncherry@linuxha.com> wrote:
On 5/28/21 5:40 PM, Gregg Levine via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Hello! Um, Jeffrey J, you get an extra bucket of points, and some chad if you can tell us who Francis Lewis was, oh and where he's buried. Hint: Think of July 4.
Bad joke:
Grant's Tomb?
-- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
"This is why you shouldn't use that thing on my TARDIS." said the Doctor as he used a special key to unlock it. (Attributed to the First Doctor before he looked the way we saw him on the Telly.)
On 5/28/21 11:34 PM, Gregg Levine wrote:
Hello! Nope! The school is named after the only member of the Constitutional Congress that wrote our documents from Queens. That's who Francis Lewis was. The chad was a reference to what punched cards produce, and the bucket of points is indeed the bad joke.
I did look him up, seems to be loyal British until the Stamp Act. Then pretty much uses all of his resources to get guns, ammo and supplies to the Continental Army. House burned, wife imprisoned to the point of almost death (sounds like she might have been imprisoned on the prison barrage the British kept nearby). She later dies from her illnesses. One daughter runs off with a British Navy Officer, 2 sons remain in the US. He dies broke and is buried in Dutchess County (60 miles north of the city). Chad I understand, I think the bucket of points is related to the chad, not sure of the burial site significance. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
participants (3)
-
Gregg Levine -
Jeffrey Jonas -
Neil Cherry