The pre-internet as we know it....

[TimberFloorAu]

We were online back in 1981.

Using fixed lines from one factory to another. Not the www as we know it, but quite surreal looking back now.

Back in those days it was all Unix, Pascal and Fortran.

[Vaupell]

Originally Posted by TimberFloorAu

We were online back in 1981.

Using fixed lines from one factory to another. Not the www as we know it, but quite surreal looking back now.

Back in those days it was all Unix, Pascal and Fortran.

hmm i remember seeing a documentary about the first generation of nerds
building their own systems, hosting BBS boards running up phone bills of several
thousand dollers way back as mid 70's around 76.

Think its still availible on google vid, ill take a look if i can find it.

--------------- Added [DATE]1231155050[/DATE] at [TIME]1231155050[/TIME] ---------------

here we go..
http://video.google.com/videosearch?...umentary&emb=0

--------------- Added [DATE]1231155121[/DATE] at [TIME]1231155121[/TIME] ---------------

hmm select the top left video called part 1- Baud.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by TimberFloorAu

Back in those days it was all Unix, Pascal and Fortran.

Hey, FORTRAN

That was the first language I learned and programmed in, on the UK CEGB* Mainframe in the late 1970's (my dad worked for them, and sneaked me in to use one of the office terminals).



[* Central Electricity Generating Board]

[Dean C]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Email, SSH and IRC were created in the 60s and 70s. They haven't changed much. During the 80s and early 90s a lot of people were online using BBSes, Genie, AOL, Prodigy and Compuserve long before they got on the WWW. I met both my wives online long before the World Wide Web was common. Also the HTTP specification was published in 1984... just took until 1989 until it started becoming popular.

You have two wives? I don't know whether to congratulate you or console you

[davidw]

After BASIC, I learned some Pascal - that was wild at the time, considering what I was used to. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like had I kept on learning - what I could have done.

[smacklan]

The first languages I learned were Fortan and Cobal as well (long since forgotten anything about them lol). Worked in a large computer shop in the early '80's running big IBM 3081 water cooled mainframes. We used to load our job JCL's (Job Control Language) from punchcards using machines like this

[iogames]

I wasn?t a geek, so I learned Graphics and CAD since the beginning

[Marco van Herwaarden]

I started in the early 80's learning basic on a DAI_Personal_Computer and assembler on mainframes.

(big fun starting a mainframe by programming a boot loader by flipping 16 (binary) switches in the front, every time giving a single instruction. Once completed booting (20 minutes entering binary code), you could use the card or tickertape reader to load additional software. And if you where really lucky you where allowed to write some data to a huge diskpack of 4Mb total.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by Dean C

You have two wives? I don't know whether to congratulate you or console you

Not at the same time.

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Hey, FORTRAN

That was the first language I learned and programmed in, on the UK CEGB* Mainframe in the late 1970's (my dad worked for them, and sneaked me in to use one of the office terminals).

My first language was Basic which I learned on a PET. It was the first computer class offered at our high school. Soon after, we got an Apple II at home and my Dad stole my cassette player so we could save programs we wrote. Ah, memories....