How did you learn to program?

Previous topic - Next topic

garyk1968

Quote from: Kimaro on 2010-Apr-24
I started with a Sinclair ZX81 too! 1k memory, wow!! Upgraded to a Commodore Vic20 then the C64 followed by the Amiga 1200 which is now stuffed in a draw. Have used ZX81 and C64 buit in basic but the Amiga never had a rom basic. Used AMOS and Blitz Basic on it. Tried several different compilers on the pc. My current pc is a Acer Aspire 5536 laptop. Quite comfortable with GLB although I need to learn a few more bits and pieces. Long live BASIC. Shunned by many for its "simplicity" but an easy way to get your ideas and dreams on a pc. Oh, and it's fun too.

Ha the exact same route I took, hours spent typing in listings rom your computer into my zx81 with dktronics 16k ram pack, remember 3d monster maze? awesome game at the time. I then got a Vic20 which was great having a real keyboard, although 3.5k ram and 22 characters per line was always abit weird!

After that a C64 and then, bizarrely an atari ST and an Atari STE which were never as popular as the Amiga. I had done a few years basic by now and some 6502 assembler. Then into the big bad world, some more basic programming on PCs (gwbasic and basica) then onto xBase, Clipper and FoxPro and then Delphi (pascal) from about 95 which I still mainly use today coupled with ObjC on the mac.

Gary

ampos

I got a 2nd hand Vic20 without manuals in 1983. After 2 months later I didnt get a ZX Spectrum Basic manual, and started learning how to use this thing. Do you remember typing endless lines od DATAs?

:enc:
check my web and/or my blog :D
http://diniplay.blogspot.com (devblog)
http://www.ampostata.org
http://ampostata.blogspot.com
I own PC-Win, MacBook 13", iPhone 3G/3GS/4G and iPAC-WinCE

Cliff3D

I also started typing in listing son a ZX81, where I graduated from BASIC to assembly (anyone remember typing in all those hex codes?) and over the years upgraded through the original Spectrum (48 I think) then BBC model B, BBC Master 128, BBC Master 512 (for which I wrote a mouse driver so that I could play MS Flight Simulator on the thing with the mouse) and, of course, a variety of PCs.

BBC BASIC, based on the BASIC I'd loved so many years ago, was one possible way to go since I fell out of love with Visual Basic (e.g. since MS dumped support for old VB programs in Vista), but for some reason the author rubbed me the wrong way. I HAVE a copy of BBC BASIC for MS-DOS around ehre somewhere, but it's way out of date - GLB is certainly more up to date. One of the attractions to me of GLB was that I thought it produced C/C++ code which was compiled by GCC, and that promised platform compatability and probable code longevity far beyond what MS seemed to be offering with VB. I think now that we're locked out from the C code produced from our applications :(

BlueSteel

Started on a tandy radio shack monel 1, then a Dick Smith Wizard, then Spectrum (or was it sniclare .. can't remember) ,  then the Good old C64 (skiped the Vic20) then the tandy coco3 , amstrad, Atari, Amiga 1000, amiga 3000, and then the PC.. yes i hated the PC ..(I know i've used a lot more too just can't remember them .. oh Texis Instrimentts computer.. was one of them) the only thing it had going for it was backward compatability.. and it lost that shortly after i purchaced my first one. I still use Emulators to run and program my favourites.. The C64 and Amiga.. both too good to forget about.

Over the years and Computers and OS's (Dos,OS2, OS2 Warp, Win 3.1 -> Win 7 . ) i've used many many programming languages, Including C , C++ , Assembly(6502,68000,x86), Basic (on many OS's in many many flavours) , Amos , Amos Pro, Blitz basics (on amiga and PC),Pascal, Cobol, Forth, Fortan, Lisp, DBase, and a flock of indie languages which are now dead and almost forgotten..

Leginus

I started programming basic on a commodore 16, then got a c64  about a year later and started coding in assembly for my *cough*  hacking / intro group that i was a member of (the ocp hackers).  Not hacking stuff like they do these days, but just removing copy protection etc. It was all about the cracktros back then.....ah what great times.

Anyway, after that I went on to work for Royal Mail and then Xansa UK ltd as a programmer doing many different things, one which was coding the software that communicated with the cash counting machines in the cash centres.  Not much fun....but it paid the bills :)

PaLe

I Start in 1986 on a ZX spectrum 48k  :nw: with implementation of same little routines in L/M and wrote same game/application for Magazines (included GFX with MelbourneDraw) ; then on Amiga 500/1200 but only in Basic Languages (AMOS, BlitzBasic) and the GFX/SFX programs like Dpaint/ProTracker in a group that, unfortunally, never completed any project/games...
then PC Qbasic, (QB7 actually used in some situation) and finally on GLBASIC, My Preferred SDK  :happy:

TUcS  (http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/gp2x.cgi?0,0,0,0,25,2820) is an example of the "Old School" written in GLB  :)

PaLe

Leos

I feel so young here.. Lol... when i started it was already a PC  :whistle:

I had a first experience using Mirc scripting to make nasty and lammer stuff on irc channels...
Then liked flash and the actionscript for a while...
Then started learning VB, pascal and lua
Then delphi was my beloved for few years, till i find about B3D
After B3D i thought i had to learn something usefull like C but it was a bit hard for me, so I went for Purebasic and now GLBasic :)
Got back to C/C++ and it's not as hard as i thought but still have some issues with it...
Now i left Psychology and entered Computer Science
(I use to 'learn' mainly from the internetz or books)
Leo.

GLBasic fan!