[dba-Tech] What got you interested in technology? IT's richandfamous share their memories

Rocky Smolin rockysmolin at bchacc.com
Fri Nov 18 22:43:20 CST 2011


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
> 


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