Posted by Bill (other posts) on January 27, 2014 at 17:21:31 Previous Next
In Reply to: Re: When did you decide? posted by Rktect on January 27, 2014 at 16:43:43:
: You must remember DOS, and Fortran. I remember the first CAD-D systems... So primitive. Analogous to the first computer games. Really an eye opener to anyone today. Sorry, straying off topic)
I first programmed a computer in 1964, when I took a programming course. In 1969 one of my final class projects was to write a rather large program in FORTRAN.
I first got on the Internet in 1973. I don't think they called it that yet. We could go over to the computer center and play a few computer games against opponents at other universities. We were given that access to test their new system, which was to become the Internet. The most popular game was "Moon War". Some nights we'd play Moon War until the sun came up. MLHH user Georges from Montreal I later learned was also playing Moon War at his university at the same time.
I first had a computer of my own in 1977. It came as a bag of parts. More than 2000 soldering joints later, I had a computer. It came with no software, but it had a book that described all the machine codes one could do with the CPU, using its accumulator and registers. Writing software was up to the owner, but it had lots of really cool blinking lights. If you've ever seen the movie War Games, the kid that almost started a nuclear war had a computer just like mine.
I began sending e-mails in the early 1980s. It was through a system called the Packet Radio Bulletin Board System. You connected your computer to your ham radio through a modem called a TNC. Once you got the gear, since there were no lines, the service was free. It could take a couple of days for an e-mail to cross the country, though, while local ones would arrive within an hour. In 1986 we set up the BBS for San Francisco for the system here in this room where I am sitting now. In effect, we were San Francisco's first ISP.
I got on the Internet in 1995 and I started my web site in 1996, In 1997 I got my last name as the domain name for it. Anything after that is not "ancient history".
Bill