December continues the Yule Season... Or as the Dems say You'll do what I say, not do

[wyntrout]

December continues the Yule Season... Or as the Dems say You'll do what I say, not do!

[wyntrout]

This isn't really funny, but under the "You'll Season" topic! :-D

[wyntrout]

DNA test.

[dustnchips]

Don't eat yellow snow.

[wyntrout]

For city folks who don't know how bacon cheeseburgers are made!

[Armybrat]

....

[wyntrout]

In 1969 I majored in computer science for a while. In 1970 I took kind of a break and tried to go to school part time In Jackson, MS, and work at a bank up there. I was miffed that after 6 months I was slated for a raise that would just bring me to what my contemporary got hired for. I quit and went back to full-time school in Hattiesburg, MS. I was studying Math and Computer Science and thought that should count for something.
At graduation computer programmers were starting at $500 a month... about what I was making tax free flying in a combat zone as a USAF SSGT... two years earlier. I changed my major to Math and got my degree in that.
Back then we had the use of an IBM 360 and used punchcards to make our program inputs for testing our programming. A portable calculator was the size of an IBM Selectric typewriter and I had no idea what one cost. The Math department had one, but I never got to see how it worked. I can't remember if it was an HP, TI, or IBM, either.
My first calculator was a few years later with red LED's and 4 functions with NO memory function. I know it cost around $100 or so, too!
If we had had home PC's back then, I would have been more interested and kept with the computer science, but our teachers were terrible and at least one was on loan, maybe, from local business and we all struggled with his class in BAS or machine language. I didn't have a clue and we colluded on a lot of things. We got some kind of credit if we got ANY kind of output... printout... from our program projects for grades! That was most disappointing.
Later in the later 70's after I got my first Radio Shack TRS II with 16K memory, I really liked Basic programming and played with that a lot. There wasn't much available for software, besides business oriented stuff. Games were text and your memory... no action shoot'em up stuff with graphics early on.
I could edit some of the BASIC programs to alter the games... add "features" and extra stuff.
With smart phones, we can do just about anything that a PC can do these days... from any place with a phone signal. 5G promises to be 50-100 times faster... can't wait!

[JohnR]

In 1969 I majored in computer science for a while. In 1970 I took kind of a break and tried to go to school part time In Jackson, MS, and work at a bank up there. I was miffed that after 6 months I was slated for a raise that would just bring me to what my contemporary got hired for. I quit and went back to full-time school in Hattiesburg, MS. I was studying Math and Computer Science and thought that should count for something.
At graduation computer programmers were starting at $500 a month... about what I was making tax free flying in a combat zone as a USAF SSGT... two years earlier. I changed my major to Math and got my degree in that.
Back then we had the use of an IBM 360 and used punchcards to make our program inputs for testing our programming. A portable calculator was the size of an IBM Selectric typewriter and I had no idea what one cost. The Math department had one, but I never got to see how it worked. I can't remember if it was an HP, TI, or IBM, either.
My first calculator was a few years later with red LED's and 4 functions with NO memory function. I know it cost around $100 or so, too!
If we had had home PC's back then, I would have been more interested and kept with the computer science, but our teachers were terrible and at least one was on loan, maybe, from local business and we all struggled with his class in BAS or machine language. I didn't have a clue and we colluded on a lot of things. We got some kind of credit if we got ANY kind of output... printout... from our program projects for grades! That was most disappointing.
Later in the later 70's after I got my first Radio Shack TRS II with 16K memory, I really liked Basic programming and played with that a lot. There wasn't much available for software, besides business oriented stuff. Games were text and your memory... no action shoot'em up stuff with graphics early on.
I could edit some of the BASIC programs to alter the games... add "features" and extra stuff.
With smart phones, we can do just about anything that a PC can do these days... from any place with a phone signal. 5G promises to be 50-100 times faster... can't wait!

I took a FORTRAN class in 1983 as a college requirement. I didn't like it much, but if I'd stuck with it I probably would have grown to appreciate it. And if anyone had told me I could have made way more money doing that, and if I hadn't been a ******* back then, well...

I still have the Casio (or is it Sharp? I need to dig it up) calculator with green vacuum fluorescent display that my dad bought back in the '70s. It runs on an AC adapter or batteries and still works.

[tokuno]

I took a FORTRAN class in 1983 as a college requirement. I didn't like it much, but if I'd stuck with it I probably would have grown to appreciate it. And if anyone had told me I could have made way more money doing that, and if I hadn't been a ******* back then, well...

Hey, we're contemporaries. That's when I was struggling through a Fortran class in Berkeley. The classes were taught by mathematicians & physicists (because degree'd computer scientists were unavailable).

The computer (DEC Vax (?)) occupied a room in the basement, with a full-time, dedicated staff. After we wrote our programs, we'd book a slot in the punch room & pound out our program - one card per line, 128 chars max per card. We typed "blind", because the ink ribbons were worn & wouldn't print the accompanying text at the top of the cards, so the cards were practically indistinguishable one from the other.

Woe betide unfortunates who dropped their decks, and there were creative schemes including coloring the card edges to allow quicker re-assembly when it happened.

Lousy typists were disadvantaged, because if you'd made a typo, you wouldn't know till the next day when you retrieved your printout. That happened to me a lot, and as an inveterate procrastinator, that long process didn't bode well for my grade.

But my disillusionment was that all the Fortran 1 sessions shared the same problem assignments, so I'd peek at other students' card decks, and you could tell the good programmers - they had slim little decks for their elegant solutions. I, on the other hand, dreaded lumbering into the processing room under the load of my brute-force-revealing, over sized deck.

It also rankled that I (broke and cheap as Scrooge) had to spend more for cards because of my incompetence
Needless to say, I abandoned my plan to study mechanical engineering.

Ironically, I'm coming to the end of a fruitful career spent in information systems.

[skiflydive]

In 1969 I majored in computer science for a while. In 1970 I took kind of a break and tried to go to school part time In Jackson, MS, and work at a bank up there. I was miffed that after 6 months I was slated for a raise that would just bring me to what my contemporary got hired for. I quit and went back to full-time school in Hattiesburg, MS. I was studying Math and Computer Science and thought that should count for something.
At graduation computer programmers were starting at $500 a month... about what I was making tax free flying in a combat zone as a USAF SSGT... two years earlier. I changed my major to Math and got my degree in that.
Back then we had the use of an IBM 360 and used punchcards to make our program inputs for testing our programming. A portable calculator was the size of an IBM Selectric typewriter and I had no idea what one cost. The Math department had one, but I never got to see how it worked. I can't remember if it was an HP, TI, or IBM, either.
My first calculator was a few years later with red LED's and 4 functions with NO memory function. I know it cost around $100 or so, too!
If we had had home PC's back then, I would have been more interested and kept with the computer science, but our teachers were terrible and at least one was on loan, maybe, from local business and we all struggled with his class in BAS or machine language. I didn't have a clue and we colluded on a lot of things. We got some kind of credit if we got ANY kind of output... printout... from our program projects for grades! That was most disappointing.
Later in the later 70's after I got my first Radio Shack TRS II with 16K memory, I really liked Basic programming and played with that a lot. There wasn't much available for software, besides business oriented stuff. Games were text and your memory... no action shoot'em up stuff with graphics early on.
I could edit some of the BASIC programs to alter the games... add "features" and extra stuff.
With smart phones, we can do just about anything that a PC can do these days... from any place with a phone signal. 5G promises to be 50-100 times faster... can't wait!

I started as an accounting major in 1970. My granny bought me a TI-1250 calculator. 4 functions, no memory. In our "lab" at college we had a WANG cpu with 4 terminals that each looked like an adding machine except they had nixie tubes for displays. They could do the 4 functions, to 4 decimal places, and had a memory. In my basement I still have a Timex-Sinclair 1000 "Personal Computer." Including the optional memory module I think it has 16 k of memory and you have to download it's "programs" from a cassette tape player.