What Was Your First Programming Language?

[Eddie W. Shore]

(07-03-2015 05:51 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  Inspired by "did anyone ever program in RPG?".

What was your first programming language?

Mine was BASIC running on a PDP-8I and TSS-8. It was a newly offered class in high school and lab time was limited so I was granted unsupervised weekend access. Kinda special at the time.

Dave

Computers:
BASIC on an Atari computer (I forgot which model) - I wish I still had the computer.

Calculators:
TI-81 (1990, middle school)

[AlexFekken]

(12-03-2017 05:35 AM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  BASIC on an Atari computer (I forgot which model) - I wish I still had the computer.

If you were like me (you seem to have a similar background and interests) it might have been a 1040ST. The first computer that I remember that went beyond the PC's 640k RAM limit with almost 1MB of usable (unsegmented) RAM.

I also wish I still had it. I used GfA Basic and Pascal on that one.

[DA74254]

Started my programming career with RPL/RPN on the 28S in '92.
Basically, it was not allowed to use programmable calcs and my engineering studies at school, but my teacher told me to safely ignore the "rules". As he put it; "If you manage to program the calc and get the correct results, then you understand the formulaes, topics and concepts being taught."

My very first "real" program was made in DOS.

It was a series of lines in hex code that I wrote (or better transcribed from a magazine) in DOS Edit and then run the debug command to make a file that renamed directories in DOS. As you probably know, DOS had no spesific command to rename directories, as Unix had.
Not unlike what you see here: DOS Debug command

Later on, I tried GWBasic (DOS 6.22), Visual Basic (Win 95), which I found dull, and moving to C++

Today, I'm getting my feet wet with Pascal, as it helps me in programming HPPL (Prime) and Lisp (Maxima). RPL for my 28S, 50G and 35S is of course also within my programming "portfolio".

C++ never lost it's ground, as I use that for my Arduinos and also PHP-coding of web-pages.

[DGM]

Oh, I'd have to say my first programming "language" was either the Digi-Comp I or the CARDIAC. I can't remember which one I used first...
Then, FORTRAN IV in high-school, on an IBM 1620 which was one of only two with two hard drives.
For calculators, an HP-25 some years later, when I could afford it.

David Motto

[Hans-Peter]

1978 Basic on a Comodore PET
   

1980 RPN on a HP41c
With the great help of the Sigma publication.

1982 Apple Basic on a Golden ][
   

and now, "C" for arduino ;-)


Hans-Peter

[Jim Horn]

First used on a computer: IITRAN (Illinois Institute of Technology's own Univac 1108 language), then FORTRAN. (1971)
First used on my own: HP-25 (1975), HP-67 (1976), 6502 assembly and Tiny BASIC (KIM 1, expanded with S-100 bus, etc.; 1977)
First used at work: Rocky Mountain BASIC (HP 9835, 1979), then UCSD Pascal, C, 68000 and 8096 assembly
Honorable mention: FORTH (Voyager World Flight Engine Monitor System, 1985), C++, various HDLs (ABEL, AHDL, Verilog, VHDL, etc.), Mathematica 10.

Given the choice, I lean towards RPN, C++ and Verilog. Lots of fun!

[larthurl]

WoW - blast from the past time

1973-1974 BASIC on PDP-8E in college
1976 RPN on HP-65 when I spent almost a month's salary to buy the 65
1977-1980 BASIC on IBM-370/158, proprietary languages for Service Bureau (part of Control Data) time sharing. Used BASIC primarily for input/output of customer data and to move data between proprietary programs (stat, finance, reporting, forecasting)
1980-1987 - HP67, HP-41 RPN, and HP 9800 series (BASIC or their version) to control instrumentation
Also used HP IBM clone (don't remember name) it was not MS-DOS compatible and could run various HP languages and their own OS. I used C and memorandum macros to write technical memos.

.....Art

[Guenter Schink]

1979 - PL/I on an IBM/370 series computer located at the German MOD. Developed a passenger booking system for the German Air Force with terminals in Germany, USA and Canada. ISPF and SyncSort were very useful tools to develop something of which I later learned it was a relational database
Günter

[toml_12953]

Mine was FORTRAN. I don't know what kind of computer it ran on since we never saw the machine. We typed up decks of punched cards and turned them in to the data center. In two or three (usually three) days, we'd get our deck back wrapped in a printout of the program run. If the printout was slim, there was a good chance it worked. If it was a huge, thick listing, we'd cringe before even opening it. It was usually a dreaded ABEND (ABnormal END) core dump and we'd have to debug our program and resubmit it. Sometimes if the program was complex it could take a couple weeks to get a good compile and run.

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

My first language was WATFIV FORTRAN and similar to the previous post we submitted cards, but usually got the results the next day. We started off using mark sense cards, which where awful to work with, then we discovered the business department had a couple keypunches so we started punching our programs. One of out first exercises was to plot the trajectory of a canon ball fired from the top of a tower until it hit the ground. Anyone that that tested for altitude = 0 got a fat printout the next day. The system our programs where compiled and run on had a limit to the number of pages of printout and would abend if you exceeded it.

[salvomic]

BASIC in ZX Spectrum 48 (1983, if I well remember) and after in Commodore 64, then C.
At the university Fortran and Pascal (they used it), C++; then Perl, PHP and Objective C (at the job)...
Now mostly Python and HPPL

EDIT: about 20 year ago I liked Basic in TI 74 Basicalc...

[DavidM]

First: PL/I on IBM 360 in the keypunch era. We only had to wait a few hours most of the time for results, though. So I guess I was lucky in that regard.

I was fortunate to have been in the first group of people at my university to be able to switch to the "new" terminal system which allowed results to be obtained within a few minutes (usually). It was around that time that they also shifted the primary "high level" teaching language to Pascal. Some amount of IBM 360 Assembly, Fortran, Cobol, and various JCL and scripting languages were added as time passed.

It was also during that time that I upgraded from a 33C to a 41C, and thought I had entered a new realm when someone showed me how to use the byte-grabber to enter some synthetics. Yes, I kept one of those laminated byte-code charts with my 41.

Most of my coding over the years has probably been in Pascal (using MPW while at Apple and Delphi after that). Lately it's mostly RPL (majority SysRPL but also some User) and Saturn assembly.

[Francois Lanciault]

Wang 600 keystroke programming when I was a kid.

From there:

TI-57
TRS-80 Basic (in the Radio Shack store as I could not afford one)
Sinclair ZX-81 basic
Z80 Assembler on zx-81
Timex Sinclair 2068 basic
Sinclair QL Basic
C Language On Sinclair QL
68000 assembler on Sinclair QL
...
Various language on Amigas
...
C language on NeXT computer
...
Various language on PC and MAC
...

and recently :

RPN on lots of HP calculators
HP Basic on old HP computers

No interest anymore in programming modern computers. Everything I do is on vintage computers and calculators.

Believe it or not, just last week at my job, I put in place a qualification setup for a new rotary actuator that will be sent into space next year. The qualification is controlled by an HP Series 300 from 1986. :-)


François

[Gamo]

The very first computer program I encounter with when I was in middle school is LOGO.
During high school is the Casio fx-4000P

[Alejandro Paz(Germany)]

I learned BASIC on the TK-85 (Brazilian clone of the ZX-81, with some enhancements) . Later Pascal on the PC, User/RPL on the 28S and then 48SX, and assembly and then C. Much later Java and python, and HDL (Verilog and VHDL but they are not programming languages per se.). Today is mostly C, Python, assembly (Saturn, and some 8 bit uP) and Verilog/VHDL.

[Arno K]

I began with a TI 57 in 1978, it soon was replaced by some Basic Pocket PCs, the Casio PB100, Sharp PC1401, 1475 and the PC-E500, the last 3 I programmed in assembler, too. In that time I learned Fortran on an IBM machine which I never saw, but we had terminals at university, punchcards had been replaced short before my programming course. A friend of mine had a "Brotkasten" (Commodore C64), we used for Basic and I owned a Sinclair ZX Spectrum on which I wrote programs in Basic and Assembler. Then I bought an Atari Mega ST (with Hard disk drive, I wish I still owned that computer), Omikron Basic, 68000 Assembler, Modula II and C were the languages I used on it. This machine then was replaced by a PC due to my needs at work, according to Modula II began with Turbo Pascal and Assembler, followed by C++, which I still use from time to time. The HP28 I owned these days was used for RPL, its battery latch broke.... Next there was a TI92+, TI-Basic and 68k Assembler again, but the machine was too clumbsy, so I bought an HP 48?, then a 49, a 49G+.
Now I do not often need to write programs and as they usually are small I do that in HPPL for the Prime or in RPL for my 50G.
Arno

[Csaba Tizedes]

When I was...

7-8 yrs old: I heard that calculators and computers are exists somewhere, I have ordered my first book about programming (Études on personal computers) and I have learned everything about the personal computers (like Spectrum or C=64)'s BASIC without computer.
8-10 yrs: TI 57 LCD (keystroke programming in math study group/faculty in my primary school)
10-12 yrs: HT-1080Z (BASIC, then Z80 assembly)
12-13 yrs: C=16 (BASIC, simple assembly in MONITOR - there was when I heard about Tóth Viktor first, because he wrote the book about ROM list of C=16 (C16 Inside))
13-14 yrs: ENTERPRISE 128 (BASIC and Z80 assembly - my first computer)

In the middle school I have used simple calculator for my math, physics and chemistry study but during my technician study I used a CASIO fx-850P with 8K RAM module. This was my trusty unit during my chemical engineering studies. That was when I met the HP's world (I beg an HP-45 from a shopwindow, but I cannot to use that without batteries).

After my studies I bought my first HP, an HP32SII and with that I started my studies as mechanical engineer. In my first semester in a computer-junkyard shop near the University I found a HP-15C with pouch, manual, box and one 48SX with case and books - that was that moment when my mind is blowed and I spent all my money. My first homework of statics I programmed on 15C and my classmates stand in line in my room to run-and-check their homework.

And all the others is history...

[Namir]

Fortran IV in 1975
HP RPN (for HP-55) in 1975

[John Keith]

1802 Assembly on home-made circuit board with 1K of RAM.
BASIC and Pascal on various PCs.
BASIC, Forth, and Saturn assembly on HP71B.
RPL on HP28 and subsequent models.
Mathematica and some dabbling with various other languages.

John

[hth]

RPN on an HP-41.

Håkan