I want to apologize up front for missing your 8-bit computer.
Please vote for the Poll as well as your computer.
Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
1–10 of 34 posts
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#2I started with Oric 1 Atmos (not in the poll!).
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#3I started with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_9850_series (Z80 like 8 bit core) (not in the poll!)
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#4I am 32 and got my start on the built-in BASIC on the IBM PS/2. You don't have the original IBM, but you have the clones?
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#5Commodore VIC-20, I was in a "gifted" program in the 2nd grade. Every Wednesday I was taken out of the normal class and put on a bus, where all the other smart kids from different schools were taken to a special school. Our teacher was writing one of those text based adventures. He taught us how to write loops, conditionals, printing output, gathering input, arrays. I have to say I was immediately hooked. Soon after my parents bought a TI-994A, I would spend hours typing in code from those old magazines that had simple game programs in them. I lusted for years for a commodore 64, my friends had them though they had no interest in programming them. It wasn't until 1990 that I got a real computer a Hewlett Packard 286. It wasn't until 1992 that I got a real compiler, borland turbo c++. I had no help, no internet, just one book. And I was on my way...
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#6Commodore VIC-20, I was in a "gifted" program in the 2nd grade. Every Wednesday I was taken out of the normal class and put on a bus, where all the other smart kids from different schools were taken to a special school. Our teacher was writing one of those text based adventures. He taught us how to write loops, conditionals, printing output, gathering input, arrays. I have to say I was immediately hooked. Soon after…
I'm the other VIC-20 vote so far and I don't know where my family had gotten that computer. It came with a book of BASIC programs that you could type in but we didn't have have a storage unit (tape drive), so each time I wanted to play a game I had to type the entire program in and run it. Most of the time I asked my mom to type it in for me, but I remember a couple of times that I spent the hour hunting and pecking in order to play my favorite game (Moon Rover or something, I forget the name).
Fun times!
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#7I started with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_9850_series (Z80 like 8 bit core) (not in the poll!)
I started with a Z80 too, in the TI-86.
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#8My first computer was really "BASIC Computer Games" by Creative Computing. I spent a lot of time poring over those programs and hunt-and-pecking them on a TRS-80 at the local Radio Shack. Eventually my dad bought me a TRS-80 Model I from a old guy with a one-eyed cat. The Model I's poor RF shielding interfered with my dad's ham radio reception. He was a real good sport about it, though, and it was probably a factor in him getting me a Commodore 64 when that came out.
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#9I voted twice. Don't kill me.
In second grade, my teacher wheeled in the school's only Apple II computer to show off a program she wrote at night school. It showed a text-mode picture of R2D2 and played the opening notes of the Star Wars theme. I wanted to know how to do cool things like that. It became an obsession.
I got a Commodore 64 in third grade, and learned BASIC and a little bit of assembly on it. That lasted me until my first year of high school. As you can guess from my username, I'm still a big fan.
Re: Poll: Which 8-bit computer got you into programming
#10Commodore VIC-20, I was in a "gifted" program in the 2nd grade. Every Wednesday I was taken out of the normal class and put on a bus, where all the other smart kids from different schools were taken to a special school. Our teacher was writing one of those text based adventures. He taught us how to write loops, conditionals, printing output, gathering input, arrays. I have to say I was immediately hooked. Soon after…
I'm the other VIC-20 vote so far and I don't know where my family had gotten that computer. It came with a book of BASIC programs that you could type in but we didn't have have a storage unit (tape drive), so each time I wanted to play a game I had to type the entire program in and run it. Most of the time I asked my mom to type it in for me, but I remember a couple of times that I spent the hour hunting and pecking…
I used to do that too! On a Spectrum, I had to type in the program, but I didn't even know how to read, so I just matched the symbols on paper with the symbols on the keyboard and tried to get the same output on the TV. Can't remember the games though.