About 12 on a TI calculator. 13 on TRS-80 Basic, 13 or 14 for Assembly
Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
31–40 of 121 posts
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#32I was 5. My parents bought me a Sinclair ZX Spectrum,
and since I couldn't afford buying games on cassettes, I started by typing in game source code from magazines and then I quickly started trying to change them at which point I learned programming pretty quickly, since there was a strong incentive behind it.
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#33I was 17 and wondering how different this is from a type writer.
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#34Python at age 16 was my first serious stab at programming.
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#35Started with BASIC on a ZX-81, when that blew we bought an Atari 800 where I learned Action! and Assembly. Learned C on my Atari ST, then on to IBM PC's and Linux.
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#36i have fond memories at 7 or 8, of stealing the local computer club's QuickBASIC and Turbo Pascal compilers so i could finally create my own EXEs!
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#37Around 9, started with the VIC-20 and a stack of BASIC programming games books - still love those crossword generator programs!
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#38My grandpa bought me a TRS-80 when I was 4-5 (don't recall exactly) because "computers are the future." My only cartridges were LOGO and Sokoban so if I wasn't in the mood to push boxes around... I don't know if you can really call it programming but I'd spend hours writing out huge I/O conversations with the computer that only worked if you knew how it was supposed to go in advance. I found it fascinating. "Hello, I…
Sounds similar to my experience. I remember writing a text-based flight simulator on the TRS-80 in BASIC named "F-14" when I was 10 or 11. It was terrible. My takeoff sequence simply incremented your speed, printed it out, and required the user to hit the "stick back" key on the keyboard once you were in the right speed range. The game was basically a text adventure with a few realtime elements thrown in. It also had music which was more like a set of random beeps that sometimes ended up sounding like a melody. Writing about it now makes me want to build it again.
I remember how excited I was when I was able to write data to a floppy from one of my programs. I felt like I could conquer the world.
All I had back then was the BASIC manual, but I was able to learn enough to be dangerous. My first real exposure to probability was the sample code in the manual for a Craps program. Great stuff for a kid to learn!
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#39Been trained in 1968 by IBM where instructors nearly apologized because:
"In a few years from now computers will be able to program themselves and will directly respond to the end users requirements"
ROFLMAO
Bonus: They taught us COBOL...
Re: Poll: How old were you when you started programming?
#40Started with Basic around 10yo on a simple 2mhz machine with 32kb of RAM. Fun times.