Joe,
     That's ok! This isn't quite 50 years ago. When I was in high school=20
in 1973 we were time sharing across a 300 baud modem that was connected=20
to an IBM 370/70 if I remember the numbers correctly. Our programs were=20
stored on paper tape. I learned how to read the characters on the tape.=20
We were learning how to program in BASIC. Some of the students=20
discovered the Star Trek program and used up all of our processor time=20
in one night. They were expelled and the school had to buy some more=20
processor time so that the rest of us could finish our programs. The=20
computer room was locked from then on unless there was an instructor=20
there. Another example of the majority losing some privileges because of=20
what a few did. I don't even remember what program I was writing. I just=20
remember that we were studying BASIC.
     We were also learning FORTRAN. That was a lot of fun. We wrote out=20
our program and then transferred the program on to cards. I believe that=20
each card held 80 characters or one line. We then mailed the cards off=20
to UNR were they would try to compile it. We would then get our cards=20
back with a print out telling us where our errors were. We would fix the=20
errors and send the cards back to UNR. The turn around time was about=20
three weeks. None of us ever finished a program. Ten years later the=20
VIC-20 came out and wow I was in heaven.
Thanks,
rich!

On 3/2/2015 7:03 AM, Joe Wronski wrote:
> Ooops, looking at the picture, I remember that it was *octal* numbers we
> keyed in, not hex.
>
> On 3/2/2015 7:58 AM, Joe Wronski wrote:
>> Sprague Electric (now Allegro) used them as part of a Teradyne test
>> system when I started there in 1976.  I didn't know a thing about
>> programming then, but there was a series of maybe 20-25 hex numbers
>> that needed to be entered in binary on the front panel to get the
>> paper tape reader loaded. Later on, I took a PDP8 assembly language
>> course and I used a cpm machine connected by 300 baud modem to the
>> college's PDP11 which ran a PDP8 emulator.
>>
>> Joe W
>>
>> On 3/1/2015 9:54 PM, John Gardner wrote:
>>> PC's for everyone !
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-8
>>>
>>> Anyone with $20K, that is, in 1965 dollars...  :)
>>>
>>> A bit of perspective on the meaning of RISC, and perhaps also
>>>
>>> the meaning of money - Roughly $200 K in today's greenbacks...
>>
>

--=20
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