Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
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Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#2Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#3> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line.
I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows 95 at my dads on weekends.
I remember learning to type `help` and running the various commands that appeared with trial/error as an enjoyable experience, not one that was intimidating. And I wasn't a particularly precocious kid, my nerd-dom was late blooming.
I actually found it made me want to explore the depths of the computer more than Windows 95 where I would mostly just click the Doom icon and maybe tinker around with creating a few briefcase folders (which I only just learned the functionality of recently :P).
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#4> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…
Same, I learned DOS, BASIC and a bit of asm when I was 9 or 10 (late 80s), from a single book and mucking about. So did a lot of my friends. Kids learn pretty quick.
Good memories in the article, interesting how people went through the same stuff around the world
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#5> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…
Same, I learned DOS, BASIC and a bit of asm when I was 9 or 10 (late 80s), from a single book and mucking about. So did a lot of my friends. Kids learn pretty quick. Good memories in the article, interesting how people went through the same stuff around the world
> BASIC and a bit of asm
Lucky. I unfortunately picked up a C++ book from the library as my first coding book around that same age and was intimidated away from programming for a few yrs until high school. I wished I grabbed the BASIC book instead, which would have been far more accessible, but I had read somewhere that video games were made in C++ which led me astray.
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#6Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.
This hits close to home. I grew up in Saudi in the 90s and had a very similar experience - stared out on an Atari 65XE, moved on to a 486 with QBasic, then QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal and later Visual Basic and VC++ (with a detour to Borland C++).
The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems.
Your note on the shady stores reminds me of doing the same - in the pre-internet/warez era, the only place to get software in the Gulf was in shady malls selling floppies (and later CDs) chock full with pirated software for 10 riyals/dirhams
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#7For the slighter earlier Late 70's & 80's era, I think the magazines provided the most information on programming. I think I bought one book, but spent a lot of time typing in programs from magazines and learning how it all worked.
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#8> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…
>I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging?
What was more challenging in my opinion/experience wasn't the technical aspect; it was the social/human aspect. I live in Algeria and I had a computer since age 4 and started BASIC at 9 and all is good, but there was no Homebrew Computer Club. We were among the first in the country to get a machine like that (it cost the same as a piece of land).
Granted, we also didn't have internet in 91 and the country was in a bloody civil war where you're happy when "only" 10 people get decapitated a day, people waiting in line to get groceries hoping to get home before curfew, and children being taught tradecraft.. but for someone my age, humans would have been more useful.
It's the microcosm/scene/culture that was lacking the most. People to live your interest with, to show your programs to, to learn from. The encouragement of knowing there even exists a scence/culture where that stuff is cool instead of asking myself why on earth I, as a non English speaker in a non English speaking country, am looking up every word in a function description in the dictionary to make sense out of it. Doing that stuff at that age in a computer desert instead of being among your peers was more challenging than any technical difficulties.
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#9Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.
This hits close to home. I grew up in Saudi in the 90s and had a very similar experience - stared out on an Atari 65XE, moved on to a 486 with QBasic, then QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal and later Visual Basic and VC++ (with a detour to Borland C++). The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems. Your n…
> This hits close to home.
Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s
#10Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.
This hits close to home. I grew up in Saudi in the 90s and had a very similar experience - stared out on an Atari 65XE, moved on to a 486 with QBasic, then QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal and later Visual Basic and VC++ (with a detour to Borland C++). The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems. Your n…
>The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems.
That's hilarious. I remember I was pissed off: why certain files do stuff and are games and all. How do they do that!
So I created a new .TXT file and changed its extension to .COM and tried to execute it. Then to .EXE.
It didn't work. I don't know what I expected back then, for it to magically do something cool I suppose.
The executables came when I got Visual BASIC for DOS. Wow! You could also make forms with buttons!
It was in on a CD that had a bunch of software on it that came with .NFO files I'd read and wonder "what was that BBS stuff they were talking about. They seem to get together and have fun with computers". They were crews who crack stuff.