Rocky Smolin
rockysmolin at bchacc.com
Sat Nov 19 12:05:25 CST 2011
Well, actually about $240 today. Still if you could sell a couple of dozen a semester that would cover a multitude of sins. Editor? Hahahahahah...punched cards. No monitors, no word processors. Just cards. Well, actually about $2140 You might write out your program by hand to start with - get an idea of how you want it to look. Then, once the first draft was on the cards, you could print the cards and use the listing to mark up. -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Lawrence Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2011 9:42 AM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] What got you interested in technology?IT'srichandfamous share their memories I love that story... you were on the way to becoming the next Zuckerberg. So what editor did you use? Some one line thing? The price is relative...$40 then is equal to $750 today. Trust me, you will never quit working, in theory I have retired but for the last month and a half, 16 hour days...but with the appropriate naps of course, after all I am not 19 anymore. Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 8:43 PM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] What got you interested in technology? IT'srichandfamous share their memories I did the same with hexadecimal programming 360s on BAL. Used to be pretty fast adding 1EF to BC2. As an undergraduate I asked a prof I was taking a course from in programming if I could proficiency the course by writing a sufficiently complex program. I proposed a cross reference indexer for FORTRAN programs. Input was the FORTRAN source code. Output was all of the variables and the lines they appeared in. There was no cross reference function for FORTRAN at the time. Write a program with 10,000 lines and have a problem with a variable, you'd have to search all the lines to find occurrences of that variable. I wrote it in assembler. And I got the A. Then I decided on a lark to try to sell it. Got some free PR through the trade mags, got bingo numbers (remember 'circle the number for more information'?), mailed out a piece to the responders describing the program. And they started to sell! I shipped the program by parcel post on punched cards - about 7-800 of them IIRC. I didn't sell many of them. But the price was $40 - which was my monthly rent at the time, I believe. That's what hooked me - not the computers or the technology - but the idea that I could have as much fun as possible playing with the world's best toys and people would push money at me for doing it. I would never have to work a day in my life. Just write a program and sell it ten times. Or a hundred. Or a thousand. I was 19. Now I'm 62 and still doing the same freaking thing. Except, if everything goes well over the next year, I'll be done with it. Going to stop. Except I have this idea for an app - health related - consumer program - could sell thousands. I guess I don't really want to stop. I just don't want to HAVE to work. R -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Lawrence Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 6:15 PM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] What got you interested in technology? IT's richandfamous share their memories 1967....so you were helping with landing men on the moon? Who were you working for? I did not get into computers until 10 or 11 years later. FORTRAN was a great program. No other program ever exceeded its ability to do a core dump of 200 pages, becuase of a single misplaced or missing period. That is why there was always a senior tech on site when ever there was a seies compiling to be done...so they could kill a run-a-way process on the main frame. ;-) But it was fast... And it was great for teaching Octal math used for calculating varibale offsets in the common block. I must say I was actually quite good at it. ;-) Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Stuart McLachlan Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 5:37 PM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] What got you interested in technology? IT's rich andfamous share their memories I got my Amiga 500 in 1987 (?), which was 20 years after I wrote my first Fortran program :-) -- Stuart On 18 Nov 2011 at 17:11, Hans-Christian Andersen wrote: > I envy you all. :) I was just a wee sprog in those days. My first > exposure to programming was Logo and then the ball got rolling once I > got my Amiga 500. But I still missed out on a lot before that. > > - Hans > > Sent from my iPhone > _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com