Using A computer...when did you start?

[Gumpy]

I didn't learn how to used one till the year 2000. my son's can run circles around me and say dad u need to take a class...the ford barn is the best thing that helped me along...very enthused by this site!!

[David J]

My mute buddy came to me in Feb 2006 . I can now type with TWO fingers - still not willing to say I know how to properly use the thing though . David J

Originally Posted by Gumpy

I didn't learn how to used one till the year 2000. my son's can run circles around me and say dad u need to take a class...the ford barn is the best thing that helped me along...very enthused by this site!!

[41 Fords ohio]

2010, and still can't type!!

[Seth Swoboda]

I started in first grade, on one of apples first computers.....1980's. Then got more in depth in 3-4th grade on the Mac's.

[Karl Wescott]

High school in the 1970's... A teletype terminal that could run maybe 25 lines of "basic" code. If you wanted to save it you used punch tape. The business got a Radio Shack TRS-80 in the 1980s for accounting and we figured out how to do the catalog on a word processor (text only). To get print quality output we purchased a kit to allow an IBM Selectric typewiter to be controled by the computer.

What amazes me is the number of guys who will get a new to them car and then have the hood up and tools out within 5 minutes to figure out whats inside, yet are afraid to turn a computer on, much less grab a screwdriver and open it up...

[Shadetree]

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We bought our son a TRS-80 (remember those?) from Radio Shack. I messed around with it a little playing simple games.

My brother-in-law built me a computer so I could use a flight simulator. He also gave me an old printer that the paper had holes along the side. Remember those? Bored to tears after retirement in 1991 I wrote articles for the local newspaper about flying airplanes and the county airport on that old computer. In the late 90's my son bought my wife and I a new computer. In 2001 I went back to work part time making drawings using Auto-Cad (Computer Assisted Drawings) after my boss showing me all he knew about it. I am still there, still enjoy it. Computers have enriched my life.

BTW, I use the Columbus Typing Method. Huntin' Land.

Shadetree

[Seth Swoboda]

He also gave me an old printer that the paper had holes along the side. Remember those?

Shadetree, that is called continuous feed paper and it is still used today with preprinted forms, ect...... Hard to believe that it is sill around.

[TonyM]

Early 1980s for electronic basic computer. It was at my job; we made utility trucks for the phone company.

Back then you had to type "win:" in the corner to bring the operating system up.

I first went on the internet in late 1995. I had internet in my house in 1996.

[raceron1120]

I guess I've evolved to some extent with computers, through work. From clerical/admin stuff in the Air Force in the early 70s using manual typewriters till now, working with the Army and some sophisticated whizz-bang stuff.

Usually 2 monitors in front of me all day long. But still not all that proficient! The kids can out-do me nearly any day.

[TomO]

First encounter with computers was in 1953 for missile guidance. After the Army, I worked on the big Mainframes that are not as powerful as today's telephones.

My first computer at home was in 1972. My watch has more computing power than it had.

[Scott H]

1977, writing code and keypunching IBM cards in Junior year of high school. A bit more in college, then nothing til 1985. Starting using VisiCalc on a TRS-80 Radio Shack machine.
Internet stuff around early 1990's. I still only know the basics and my grandkids can do so much more than me, especially picture sharing and photoshop kinda stuff.

[Frank Miller]

First used one in the 80's but did not own one until 1997. Now I have a desktop, laptop and iPhone. Always connected and can answer most questions wherever I may be. Computers run the plant I work in. I know some people, younger than myself even, that say they cannot be bothered. I am 53 and wonder if people that did not have a telephone in the 20s used the same lame excuse, I have not had one all these years, why do I need it now? BTW I hardly ever use my phone for talking.

[super flat]

Not until I absolutely had to have one in my business 2007. Gary

[Bill in Al]

Got one 5-6 years ago and still am not very proficient.It absolutely stuns me that so much info can be gotten from the internet. There is no reason that a person can't become well educated.Just have to be VERY cautious-not everything you read is fact!

[Shu47]

First used when I went to college in 1975. Bought my first one in about 1984 and had one or more in the house ever since.

[Dave72dt]

1970 -Computer class in college. In home, when windows first came out, no internet- too far out in the country, Now, 6 working units, all wireless except 1 tower I use as a base for the rest.

[BILL WZOREK]

I've Heard a lot of good things about them,Just might try one out some day.
I just put a new string in the two soup can's / The grandkids told me to empty the soup out first.
Defiantly much much clearer now. LOL LOL

BILL W

[Bill S]

Mid 60s on the IBM 1400

[55 dude]

being in my 50's didn't start until the mid 90's thinking "man these would sure be great to write reports on" now thats the only way to do them. the video uses are fantastic to exchange tech with.

[37slantback]

Since about 1980. It makes a great living once you get past that decision each morning after you start the car. Whether or not to open the garage door.

[BillLee/Chandler, TX]

Early 60's in college, then a whole career using them starting in 1964. Still like to "play" with them.

[oldandtired]

My best friend in the mid 60's worked for IBM in Houston. Dad worked for Sperry. I was exposed to them very early, but did not use one very much until 1980 working in Saudi Arabia. We had a mainframe for keeping records. Quite a facility, but then the Saudis had plenty of money. I bought my first computer in 1983.

[peewee2you]

Late 30's, now in mid 50's, started on Dos machine spent 2 weeks couldn't get it to do a damn thing, then about 2am it all came to me, got the thing to talk back, then got it too sing. I soon upgraded it to a color monitor, from there I learned how to build them, went from one computer convention to another, reading on all the best parts etc. and put my first one together, built maybe 15 or so after that, still got Dos machines to this day, have old windows machines and software. You I have a passion for fixing things, or building or making old things like new. The beauty was I like to work on cars, and on computers you had to be clean and grounded using a grounding strap hooked from your rist to the frame of the machine, wow working and building without gettin dirty or greasy, is there such a heaven I ask, oh yes and this was it. Well enough of that I no longer build them too that depth, but am proficient and self reliant on curing pretty much any but or problem that arises.

[felix37]

Started using them in junior high (the early 80's) got our first home computer in 99'.

[jim1932]

I remember in high school they had one... in the math department and you had to be a senior math whiz to do it. I remember using a school apple with dual diskettes (no harddrive, to do simple accounting. We still had to use typewriters and correction ribbon to write papers in in college. My first accounting job there was one ibm XT and everyone took turns on the fantastic "new"program called Lotus. It had 512K of ram and a 20 meg hard drive. and a green monochrome screen.... what a ride. Now I have a laptop, a mac and an IPAD.... and a smartphone.

[Kens 34 PU]

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I'm disappointed that I haven't heard the 2 basic words that every engineering geek in the '70's knew! Fortran and Cobalt! Computer Lab 101 in 1973, we used Fortran to write computer language to add 2 plus 2! You key-punched 100 or more cards to do a simple calculas equation and Lord help you if you got one card out of sequence! Then you fed it into a gigantic card reader that fed a CPU the size of most modern double wide house trailers. After the printer spit out a quarter of a mile of 11"x17" serrated computer paper, it verified to you that in fact, 2 plus 2 equalled 4! Hell, I could have have figured that out on my K&E sliderule!

Oops, I'm showing my age again!

Ken

[28RPU]

Well, funny thing, I got a degree in computer programming in 1968 and went into the military.I didn't use it there and when I got out everything had changed and I lost interest in computers.They were as big as a room then. Fast forward to about 1996 or so and I got a used 486,I think the timeline is right. Anyhoo, I got a real computer in 2000 just like you.

[richard crow]

1955 they called it a slide ruler most of america was built with one. no virrses no crashes no spam fit in your pocket came with a printer pen & pensel. still have it today & it still works

[BillLee/Chandler, TX]

Originally Posted by Kens 34 PU

I'm disappointed that I haven't heard the 2 basic words that every engineering geek in the '70's knew! Fortran and Cobalt! Computer Lab 101 in 1973, we used Fortran to write computer language to add 2 plus 2! You key-punched 100 or more cards to do a simple calculas equation and Lord help you if you got one card out of sequence! Then you fed it into a gigantic card reader that fed a CPU the size of most modern double wide house trailers. After the printer spit out a quarter of a mile of 11"x17" serrated computer paper, it verified to you that in fact, 2 plus 2 equalled 4! Hell, I could have have figured that out on my K&E sliderule!

Oops, I'm showing my age again!

Ken

Earliest (early 60's iin college) was assembly language on a Bendix G-15. When I went to work for an oil company in 1964, it was Fortran on an IBM 1401, later on IBM 7094. Late 60's used SDS 920/930/9300 (SDS was a CDC spin-off) using Fortran again. Then into the Univac mainframes, later IBM 360/370/etc.

Saw the future in 1985 and took my group into shared "mini" computers (DEC Vax) and then Unix on Sun workstations. Been in the Unix world since 1985, internet shortly after. (Anybody else remember when the Usenet newsgroups were all there was?)

First computer at home was in the early 80's and was an Osborne CPM machine. Bought a NeXT in 1991 (Steve Jobs' company and computer between his Apple days).

Like somebody said, I have more compute power in my wrist watch than those first computers back in the early 60's

PS: It's "COBOL", to be avoided like the plague! An UGLY language.

[flat-v8]

I didn't know really anything about computers or could afford one, until sometime in the early 80s, I was doing a small electrical job in someones house, fans, light fixtures etc. when finished I told the customer, total $75.00 He offered me a complete computer system instead of money, it was my very first PC! An IBM pcJr 128kb ram, cga monitor, no HDD, bootable only with DOS 5.25 floppies, I had a blast with that thing! Added sidecar memory modules that actually increased the size of the desktop itself, maxed it out to a whooping 640k, then overclocked the 8088 processor to a screaming 10 mhz! With the external 336 modem I got online to chat rooms and forums, then it was time for an upgrade, so I sold the pcJr. for $800.00 and the buyer was thrilled to get such a fast machine! Ha Ha! I have building and tinkering with computers ever since, and nearly every one is overclocked gaming rigs for college kids. Just finished building a i7 960 quad core system, with dual Radeon's in crossfire, and 8 gigs of ram. Smoking fast! Boy how times have changed.

[Clem Clement]

The SR-71, The US Air Force's famous Blackbird, was the last aircraft designed by a slide rule.
Clem

[1931 flamingo]

I was working at IBM when they introduced the PC. WE used to sit around the shop and wonder who would buy one of these. Who knew? Can't live without them now. Glad I kept my stock though. On another vein, Kodak stops making cameras. Unreal.
Paul in CT

[amodel25]

Originally Posted by Kens 34 PU

I'm disappointed that I haven't heard the 2 basic words that every engineering geek in the '70's knew! Fortran and Cobalt! Computer Lab 101 in 1973, we used Fortran to write computer language to add 2 plus 2! You key-punched 100 or more cards to do a simple calculas equation and Lord help you if you got one card out of sequence! Then you fed it into a gigantic card reader that fed a CPU the size of most modern double wide house trailers. After the printer spit out a quarter of a mile of 11"x17" serrated computer paper, it verified to you that in fact, 2 plus 2 equalled 4! Hell, I could have have figured that out on my K&E sliderule!

Oops, I'm showing my age again!

Ken

X2...I was in college in 1969 and had to take a course in Fortran programming. The computer was an IBM 1620, filled up a whole room. The room had a window unit air conditioner and 2-3 times a day the computer would have a "thermal shutdown". Let it cool down and try again.......

[wga]

First computer - abacus! Still have my K&E slide rule, kind of a rite of passage at the time.
Fortran, used BASIC to program my calculus homework, and quant analysis. Besides the mainframe, used a teletype with a phone set into a receiver on the teletype. Loud and clunky.

[Shu47]

Oh yes Ken...I remember college in the 70's using Fortran and Wat5 (sp) and punch cards and using machine language with on a PDP-11 and then later using Cobal. I am glad those days are gone

[1oldtimer]

In the 80's in school on one of these:




and on one of these :

[Ray Parson]

this dam thing cost me to dam much money spend spend thats all i do now i cant get my emails to com thrue theres a photo of a lock cant get the dam thing to cleer itself get its time to have it looked at

[Binx]

Late eighties in the Air Force. Hated it. Email late 90's hated it even more. Waited for the phone to ring so I knew which email was really important. Drove my Lt's crazy.

Lonnie

[51 MERC-CT]

Got my first 'puter' before 'lectricity'

[fordy_nine]

My firstcomputer experience was at college, using IBM system with punch cards and Fortran IV software - not very user-friendly. Started using computers at work in early 80's, First practical (IBM PC) home computer was in 1994. BTW, I repaired radar systems during my Army time that had analog computers - like electrical slide rules...Bob L

[Hotrodladycrusr]

In the mid 80's I worked for Burroughs/Unisys and used a computer at work. Got my own PC in the house in 1999 I think it was. My cousin gave me his old one. Got AOL internet access in the house in 2000 and in 2003 started working for the local cable company so my high speed internet here has been free ever since. Two desktops, one laptop and one smart phone now.

[Frank The Plumber]

When I fed quarters into that stupid pong machine when I was just a kid I knew that the world would be ruined by it.

[John Kennedy]

9th grade- Fortran punch cards. After that it was Radio Shack Trash-80s and 5 1'4 floppys.
At home in '91 Windows 3.1.1 and slow dialup AOL

[JeffG]

On a Varian 620i main frame with 11 inch Ampex tape decks and 2 k of core memory, in 1978. Next was a Commodore 64 and HP 1000 E series main frame. Fun stuff.

[Django]

In Junior High, about '85. First Mac in '87. Bought my own Mac in college in '92. About 5 of us in the graphic design program bought our own so we wouldn't have to deal with the labs on campus. We ended up teaching our professors a thing or two as well. So professionally, every day since 1992.

[[email protected]]

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My first, an Apple II. My wife used Compuserve to communicate with someone in Japan. It helped to free me of a central office and was able to run business from almost anywhere. Tried IBM once in the 90's and went back to Apple and never thought of changing again.
Thank goodness I took typing in high school!

[Gumpy]

learnin new things every day....just got a new computer take along thang..

[Charlie Stephens]

Gumpy,

Check out classes at the local adult school or Junior College. I first used a main frame computer when I was at UCLA studying Engineering. Punched a lot of paper cards. My first "PC" came while working at Hughes Aircraft about 1980. The software was "Lotus" (similar to EXCEL that everyone uses today) and I had to load it from a 5 1/4 inch floppy disc each time I used it. I was also lucky that I was one of the few guys that took typing in High School (I knew that I would need to type my own term papers in College).

Charlie Stephens

Originally Posted by Gumpy

...dad u need to take a class...

[fordman]

on an engineering job in 1964 IBM 650 fortrans language (took 25 tons air cond to keep from overheating) , went into into day to day computer and applications as I want. still don't have it mastered.

[robert dick]

got my first one in 2008,a Gateway, took some classes in C++ at the local college--still can't say i'm very proficiant--but then again i prefer my slide rule to a calculator.

[Gumpy]

these computers are gettin small and thinner!

[mrtexas]

Ha ha, at U of Washington from 73-77 I was punching cards for a mainframe, same when I went to work in 77. I had only a single course in Fortran at college. Wow that first punch card machine with a memory was something! With that I didn't have to re-type the whole 80 characters when you made a mistake. Woe is you if you dropped your box of hundreds of cards, hadn't numbered them and had to re-sort them again.

Sometime in the 80s I got my first PC. In the 90s-2010 I was programming a propriety computer based on Pascal for running an oil refinery.

[37slantback]

55 pound CPM system in 80 or 81. In 87 I got a PC clone. WooHoo!

[al's28/33]

My first when AOL was the way to go.......1996 ?

[Gumpy]

google gettin to be a go-to friend!

[ford38v8]

A hand me down Macintosh Classic about 1997 ?

Today it's a Macbook Pro, and I don't know when this happened, but I no longer use a computer... it uses me.

[FL&WVMIKE]

I got an early start, but, foolishly gave it up.
I programmed the ole IBM 1400 series, back in the sixties with Autocoder and COBOL. I had to do a little de-bugging in machine language.
I liked COBOL, especially when you had to de-bug someone else's program. COBOL was a language where you used COmmon Business Oriented Language. Even then, some programmers made up thier own words.
Too many eighteen hour days burned me out.
MIKE

[rick r]

mid 60's on an I B M 1620. just learned enough to get a passing grade. still have very basic skills on a modern personal computer.