Odd-Ball Picture of the Day

Ti99-4A, hooked to a B&W tv. Cassette tape storage.

 

still have a sinclair1000, 8mb ram, cassette storage. no operating system, turn it on to a blinking cursor and DIY havnt turned it on in a long time though. "hello world" was my first code too.

i probably could have been a real pro grammer if i didnt also have a motorbike at the time. lol

 

I remember 'writing' code back in the day when you followed instructions in PC mag or some shit to make your own rudimentary video game. Later, when I went to college I decided I was going to do that for a career until I took my first computer science class (that's what they used to call IT for you kids). Fuck. This. Shit.

I think I switched majors by the next week.

 

I have a C64 still in the original box (and the receipt).

Press play on tape, bushes!

 

It was 'COINS' when I went to school.

COINS 127/128, Pascal, separated the men from the boys. I took 287 Assembly Language (4-bit Rockwell), and that was enough for my career. I hated that assembler class. 20+ years later, I was writing assembly on PIC and AT-Megas for fun/hobby.

 

My dad was an electrical engineer for Texas Instruments when I was a baby, and then an escalation manager for Hewlett Packard for around 35 years. Computers his whole professional life, when it was very much a new industry, especially for home use. When the first Nintendo system came out (I mean the actual first one, not a SNES or some shit) I wanted one sooo bad. For Christmas, I got a computer instead. This was around 1985-7. It was the size of a suitcase, and had around a 5 inch monitor, no joke. I remember being in Toys-R-Us with my mom and saying something about how I really wanted one, and she said "I wanted to get you that, but your dad thought you're smart and mature and could do more with a computer". I was crushed.

I have failed to act responsibly or smart since. I swear I remember that shit like it was yesterday.

 

Similar, took some classes in HS and college, C, C++, and VB, Id rather pluck my eye balls out with rusty scissors than code for a living.

 

I took one programming class, once, only ounce.

Lasted 3 classes and I had enough. Teacher kept telling me it was easy and stay at it. I told him, no working on PC's, server's, printers is easy. He looked at me like I was the crazy one.

 

I went to college to be an engineer. After Calculus and differential equations ( I think), I said screw all that math crap, which had always been a good subject for me. I went into computer science after that. Then after college at my first computer job, I moved into sales after a couple years.

I sometimes wonder which crappy thing I've done that my kids will remember forever!!!

 

Punch cards?

 

Perforated tape with a teletype terminal...1971

 

Who's hungry?

 

Oh, jeez... did that guy not know that isn't a croc pot??!!??

 

That's a grillagator, and the best part of it is that it's not kosher.

 

Ha Ha, great picture. True story, when my son started his EE classes I told him that the only thing I wanted in order to help pay for his college was a decent explanation of VARs.