Is it just me

[JohnW2]

And then, was roughly when I built my first 'computer'. All I remember of it was a rather crude display, and a crude hex keypad, but a computer, you could program with instructions.

Very similar here. It must have been 1975/76 when I built my first approximation to a 'computer'.

What I built later in that decade, was very much more advanced, and ended up as an S100.

Again, very similar. In 1979/80 I designed and built a much 'larger' (in all senses) computer - which was Z80-based (hence '8-bit') and initially had just 8 kB of ('static') RAM (which had to accommodate 'operating system', program and data), eventually increased to 64 kB ('dynamic'), at incredible cost! - and I even wrote an 'operating system', together with crude 'word processor' and 'spreadsheet' all directly in Z80 machine code (none of the 'Assembler' stuff 'for wimps' ) - all all that (plus some 'working space) had, at least initially, to be accommodated within the 8 kB of available memory, which was quite a challenge!

Things got much easier ('space-wise') in the early 80s when I added an (again incredibly expensive) 5¼" floppy drive . The whole thing was massive (I'll try to find it an photograph!), and used so much power that it could probably have been regarded as an electric heater

 

[JohnW2]

IBM 360 was introduced in 1964. ... By the 1970's there were enough around to be well known. ... Not in schools or homes, of course, but universities had access

Indeed - as I just wrote, in 1967 or thereabouts I was attempting to write FORTRAN code which was run on the mainframe (I imagine IBM) in the (London) uni's 'computing centre down the road'.

 

[JohnD]

When I first worked in the business, we had a revered sys prog who was said to be able to work in machine code, and respected as a genius.

I happened to see his entry on social media more recently.

It said (approx wording) "my life, such as it is, has mostly been spent writing computer programs."

 

[ericmark]

Started with Spectrum, then Amiga, the latter used for Packet, is that still being used?

 

[JohnD]

Things got much easier ('space-wise') in the early 80s when I added an (again incredibly expensive) 5¼" floppy drive . The whole thing was massive (I'll try to find it an photograph!), and used so much power that it could probably have been regarded as an electric heater

The "toaster?"

 

[JohnD]

Started with Spectrum, then Amiga, the latter used for Packet, is that still being used?

I started with a pair of 360/65s


(Not my own)

 

[JohnD]

Indeed - as I just wrote, in 1967 or thereabouts I was attempting to write FORTRAN code which was run on the mainframe (I imagine IBM) in the (London) uni's 'computing centre down the road'.

London Uni probably ICL.

 

[JohnW2]

London Uni probably ICL.

I was at UCL at the time. My recollection/understanding was that the 'computing centre' which was running our code was just 'around the corner' in Malet Street - in, or close to, Senate House - but, best part of 60 years on, my memory might be failing me

 

[JohnW2]

When I first worked in the business, we had a revered sys prog who was said to be able to work in machine code, and respected as a genius.

I certainly would not describe myself as any sort of genius, but it was certainly very tedious - and probably would have been impossible (for anyone who was not a real genius!) had it been more than the 8-bit.

Probably the most tedious thing was being surrounded by countless scraps of paper on which I'd had to do scribbled hex arithmetic to work outrelative jumps and offsets etc.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Again, very similar. In 1979/80 I designed and built a much 'larger' (in all senses) computer - which was Z80-based (hence '8-bit') and initially had just 8 kB of ('static') RAM (which had to accommodate 'operating system', program and data), eventually increased to 64 kB ('dynamic'), at incredible cost! - and I even wrote an 'operating system', together with crude 'word processor' and 'spreadsheet' all directly in Z80 machine code (none of the 'Assembler' stuff 'for wimps' ) - all all that (plus some 'working space) had, at least initially, to be accommodated within the 8 kB of available memory, which was quite a challenge!

I did similar, except with an 8080, and static ram up to the limit of a massive 64k, but wrote a rather clever word processor, in BASIC. The BASIC, rapidly ran out of ram, so I ended up having to design a 'memory paging system', a sort of precursor to what the BBC eventually made good use of. They may even of got the idea from me?

From there, I moved onto ready-rolled machines, like the BBC, because I could no longer compete. I ended up with an ex-university adaption of the BBC, using the BBC as the front-end, for a quite massive, multi-processor beast of a machine, then eventually lost all interest, I became just a normal user of computers.

 

[boringoldcodger]

in 1967 or thereabouts I was attempting to write FORTRAN code which was run on the mainframe (I imagine IBM) in the (London) uni's 'computing centre down the road'.

I imagine quite possibly a Ferranti Atlas.

 

[JohnW2]

I imagine quite possibly a Ferranti Atlas.

I have no idea but, at the rime, I think IBMs were the only ones that most people had heard of.

... and, of course, I think it was sometime back then that some high up IBM guy made the prediction (which he's probably tried hard to forget ) that it was inconceivable that there would ever be a need/market for more than about 10,000 computers ion the world

 

[JohnD]

It was once forecast that there would be a telephone in every town in America.

 

[ericmark]

The national grid was completed in 2008, when Abergeirw in Gwynedd, North Wales was connected. Just because I lived in Hong Kong, so I got a fax machine both UK and Hong Kong to send and receive letters to/from my wife, does not mean most of UK ever got that facility.

Latter I was using Pack Radio to talk to my son, but this is hardly normal for most UK households.

Even my daughters have been taught by me to wire a plug etc. And we look at such tasks as simple and normal, but that does not mean everyone has been trained.

Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, one would expect from the name, would be used by all, it is rather BASIC after all, but in the real world that is not the case. I remember when I came to use Java Script, having to get my head around 2 + 2 = 22, it was the value of 2 plus the value of 2 that = 4, and miss off "val" in the formula and one got the wrong answer.

But at 50 I still thought 2 + 2 = 4.

 

[JohnW2]

I did similar, except with an 8080, and static ram up to the limit of a massive 64k ...

That really would have been 'a toaster'

, but wrote a rather clever word processor, in BASIC. The BASIC, rapidly ran out of ram, so I ended up having to design a 'memory paging system', a sort of precursor to what the BBC eventually made good use of. They may even of got the idea from me?

Back at that stage, I also wrote a little BASIC interpreter, but couldn't do that until I had more than the initial 8k ot total RAM. It's greatest limitation was that it could only handle 26 variables (named "A"to "Z"), each of which could be either numeric or character, with a look-up table pointing to the start address in memory (and length) for each of them. Stealing the idea from a series of articles by John Adams published in Wireless World around 1980, I used a calculator IC as a 'numeric co-processor' which greatly reduced the necessary size and complexity of the BASIC interpreter, since it didn't have to include any of the relatively complex routines that would have been needed for doing arithmetic.

From there, I moved onto ready-rolled machines, like the BBC, because I could no longer compete. I ended up with an ex-university adaption of the BBC, using the BBC as the front-end, for a quite massive, multi-processor beast of a machine, then eventually lost all interest, I became just a normal user of computers.

Pretty similar here. Sometime in the early 80s it became impractical (in many senses) for me to attempt to compete with 'ready-rolled'. I started with a couple of Apricot Xi machines (which I still have) - expensive, of course, and rather fascinating, in that they were sort-of 'portable' 9albeit heavy!), with a handle and provision for clipping the keyboard onto the back, and a small (about 8") monitor which also had a handle. The first of my Apricots had only a (3.5") floppy, but the second one initially had a 5 MB hard drive, which I subsequently upgraded (at great cost!) to 10 MB As we approach the stage at which 5-10 TB drives will probably be very commonplace, it's pretty amazing to realise that they will represent a million times more storage than my initial ones, probably at a 'real' cost less than those old ones

I moved to 'IBM compatibles' (i.e. 'PCs' as we now know them) in the fairly late 80s - whereupon, like you, I became a "normal user of computers" (albeit I often 'built' them myself, from commercial motherboards and other bits)!

Having said all that, I was using my initial Z80 monster regularly (for work as well as 'play') until well into the latter 80s.