What Was Your First Programming Language?

[John Smitherman]

BASIC on our school district's main frame.

[Etienne Victoria]

Ti-58C programming
UCSD Pascal on Apple //e
FORTRAN IV

[SlideRule]

A chart from History of Programming Languages (1981) to facilitate the discussion.
[attachment=5461] [attachment=5463]
BEST!
SlideRule

[pier4r]

Another useful source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o..._languages (maybe it can be linked in the first post)

(RPL is there! :rplmasterrace: I did not find RPN or FOCAL but likely are mentioned with different names . HP PPL is missing)

[Gilles59]

If I remember well, and mix profesionnal and personnal use :

Casio fx502P , Basic (Oric and Amstrad CPC), 6502, Z80, Fortran77, Pascal UCSD (on Apple II), RPG (IBM36), RPG (IBM AS400), Rexx (interesting one!), Multilog , RPL, Visual Basic, Java, Turbo Pascal (3 to 7), Delphi... Its Strange but I never really use C or C++. The more pleasant for me was to work on AS400 (a superb OS, very coherent, with interestin and easy to use concept for the time like message queue, Embedded data Base, help file etc.), Turbo Pascal and Delphi ... and of course RPL

[Accutron]

Here's a couple languages that you won't find on any lists or infographics, even though thousands of programmers wrote millions of line of code in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Symbolic Nike-X (SNX) and CENTRAN, the assembler and high level language for the Bell/UNIVAC Data Processing System (DPS). The DPS was a huge multiprocessor system, originally built for the Nike-X ABM program and later adapted for the Sentinel and Safeguard ABM programs which Nike-X evolved into. As far as I know, there are no publicly available references for either of these languages, probably because there is still a single DPS in operation as part of the Perimeter Accquisition Radar (PAR), an early warning phased array radar installation at Cavalier AFS in North Dakota. The DPS was built from Western Electric discrete self-biasing direct-coupled transistor logic ICs with a 15000-year MTBF, and originally required an IBM 360 and a CDC 1700 as support hardware.

[pier4r]

(12-23-2017 02:41 PM)Accutron Wrote:  Here's a couple languages that you won't find on any lists or infographics, even though thousands of programmers wrote millions of line of code in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Symbolic Nike-X (SNX) and CENTRAN, the assembler and high level language for the Bell/UNIVAC Data Processing System (DPS). The DPS was a huge multiprocessor system, originally built for the Nike-X ABM program and later adapted for the Sentinel and Safeguard ABM programs which Nike-X evolved into. As far as I know, there are no publicly available references for either of these languages, probably because there is still a single DPS in operation as part of the Perimeter Accquisition Radar (PAR), an early warning phased array radar installation at Cavalier AFS in North Dakota. The DPS was built from Western Electric discrete self-biasing direct-coupled transistor logic ICs with a 15000-year MTBF, and originally required an IBM 360 and a CDC 1700 as support hardware.

Interesting bit!

[SlideRule]

(12-23-2017 02:41 PM)Accutron Wrote:  Here's a couple languages that you won't find on any lists or infographics … late 1960s and early 1970s: Symbolic Nike-X (SNX) and CENTRAN … Bell/UNIVAC Data Processing System (DPS) … a huge multiprocessor system, originally built for the Nike-X ABM program and later adapted for the Sentinel and Safeguard ABM programs which Nike-X evolved into. As far as I know, there are no publicly available references for either of these languages …

a modest reference for some information…
[attachment=5469] [attachment=5470]
BEST!
SlideRule

[Alex S]

(12-17-2017 09:47 AM)pier4r Wrote:  

(12-16-2017 09:32 PM)Alex S Wrote:  Today, I still use vim every day and I am not programming anymore for a living.

Who doesn't? Vim is everywhere! Vim is life. Although I have to admit I still use the arrows and not hjkl.

If you keep your 8 fingers on the homerow, then the full power of vi/vim will be unleashed for you.

(12-17-2017 08:42 PM)pier4r Wrote:  Emacs? Is it even installed somewhere? Although I have to say that there is a "tribute" to emacs for RPL systems.

I am not against other text editors (or calculators, or what not), one chooses the tool that fits his skills and does the job.

Definitly I didn't want to start another editor war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war

(12-18-2017 03:40 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  

(12-18-2017 12:16 PM)EugeneNine Wrote:  it still comes on some Linux distros by default, along with vi and others

It has been on every Macintosh since Apple released Mac OS X in 2001. Together with vi and vim and awk and yacc and everything else :-)

I still use vi some times to edit simple text files ("vim" is for sissies ;-) ).

Actually, vi is for sissies and ed remains the one true text editor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)

[TheKaneB]

My first language was BASIC on a Commodore 64, then Pascal / Delphi on Windows95, then (in chronological order) PHP, C, ARMv5 Assembly, Java, C++ and finally Python 3. I'm not counting all the smaller dialects and the languages I know little about, only those which I have done some serious work with.

[ggauny@live.fr]

Hi,

I remember it was PROGRAMA 101. It was when I had 35 years old (in 1970), an inginier for him I worked (as cleaner his office) see this to me.

It was possible to registred on IBM card, not perfored but with magnetic brown matiere on it.

He explain me it is easy calculate mathematic with this. He helped me how to do a quadratic equation solution, from this all calculators are magics and hypnotics for me.

Now I know to resolve by hand !

[Massimo Gnerucci]

Programma 101, an Italy's first! :)
And HP was (ahem) inspired by it when issuing the 9100A... Oh those nasty Copyright laws! ;)





In italian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RjIRKIetP8

[badaze]

A few month ago I watch a documentary about Olivetti and its impact at the beginning of the computer era. I was far from thinking they almost created it !

[Accutron]

As far as programmable electronic desktop calculators go, the Mathatronics Mathatron 4-24 beat the Programma 101 to market by some number of months. Mathatronics also beat HP to market by several years with the introduction of a scientific function version of the Mathatron in 1964.

Does anybody have a relevant citation for the claim that Olivetti sued HP? The Wikipedia page for the Programma has made the claim for years with no primary source.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(01-11-2018 10:46 PM)Accutron Wrote:  Does anybody have a relevant citation for the claim that Olivetti sued HP? The Wikipedia page for the Programma has made the claim for years with no primary source.

This newspaper article here: http://www.lastampa.it/2015/10/13/cultur...agina.html in it's last paragraph states that on 10th June 1967 HP had to pay Olivetti 900,000 Dollars for violating their patents. With these figures it should be possible to investigate furter - but I doubt that legal proceedings of that year have been digitised, which means one would have to dig through paper archives to reveal more details...

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(01-12-2018 11:23 AM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  Hello!

(01-11-2018 10:46 PM)Accutron Wrote:  Does anybody have a relevant citation for the claim that Olivetti sued HP? The Wikipedia page for the Programma has made the claim for years with no primary source.

This newspaper article here: http://www.lastampa.it/2015/10/13/cultur...agina.html in it's last paragraph states that on 10th June 1967 HP had to pay Olivetti 900,000 Dollars for violating their patents. With these figures it should be possible to investigate furter - but I doubt that legal proceedings of that year have been digitised, which means one would have to dig through paper archives to reveal more details...

Also, from the Youtube video linked by Massimo, starting at 46m04s:

"La Programma 101 ha influenziato molti computer e l'esempio più notto è la Hewlett-Packard 9100, che è molto simile. É una macchina da scrivania, registra i programmi con una cartolina magnetica. Il capo del laboratorio della Hewlett-Packard mi disse che per la loro HP 9100 si erano veramente ispirati alla Programma 101. Sembra che L'HP abbia dovuto appagare i diritti all'Olivetti per l'uso dell'idea. Nel 1968 l'HP si accorda con l'Olivetti e paga novecento mila dollari all'azienda italiana per potere utilizzare il brevetto della Programma 101, quello stesso brevetto che pochi anni prima Perotto e De Sandre avevano ceduto all'Olivetti per la cifra simbolica di un dollaro."

Edited to fix one typo.

[Krauts In Space]

1st: BASIC on Commodore PET 2001 (ca. 1978)
then: Apple II BASIC, UCSD PASCAL and TransFORTH (ca. 1979/1980 and later)
then: in my mind a hodgepodge of several pocket calculators of
Casio FX501P/602P (ca. 1980) /702P (ca. 1988) and finally HP41 (ca. 1983) as well for EE and nautical navigation.
The rest is legion.
Bec. of RPN my favorite programming language is FORTH.

[Andreas]

My first “Programming Language“ was a simple assembler / hex coding on a Diehl machine (don't remember it's name) in school.
Shortly after that came keystroke programming on TI's SR56 and other calculators, then BASIC and 6502 assembler on the Commodore PET.

Greetings
Andreas