How did you get into programming in the first place?

If you want a sanity check on programming life, I recommend you follow @ThePracticalDev in some form.

Recently a question was posed regarding we all got into programming in the first place.
https://dev.to/ben/how-did-you-get-into-programming-in-the-first-place/comments
There are a few interesting posts, here is my submission.

The Vic-20 was the first introduction, using BASIC pokes recorded on tape, but I think it was seeing the use of a variable in a simple Pascal programme over the shoulder of another student in year 9 that sparked something for my career choice. Ada at university, then PL/SQL with Oracle databases.

I often forget those first years, in between playing some form of space invaders, where I could follow a spiral bound manual to write simple BASIC programs, recording them onto a magnetic tape recorder.

Vic-20 "Datasette"

Insert many years of playing with DOS and autoexec.bat; playing Dune, Civilisation, and any number of cold war games & flight simulators, I found myself in a computing class when I was early teens. In maybe our second workshop I noticed the nerd in front of me doing something interesting with a 'variable'. No doubt my memory has warped this moment over time, but I vividly recall contemplating the creative implications of this temporary memory storage.

This nerd & I became friends, we created a cool little character-based word-sleuth game using Pascal, and I think I was kidding myself thinking of a career in Architecture.

It helped that Ada was the language of choice at the time in university. Look familiar? We finished our project work using Oracle, and I found myself at an Oracle client site instead of building internal systems for Collins class submarines...

Now I blog stuff about a revolutionary front end IDE built on top of amazing database technology.

What will we all be programming in three more decades time?

An random insight into computing history

In the days of reaching the moon, we amazed ourselves with the mathematical capability we empowered our machines with.

Apollo's 32kg guidance computer was basically 2Mhz and it's memory measured in kilobytes, and gave Neil Armstrong a cryptic memory error just seconds from landing on the moon.

It used to be said that the apollo spacecraft technology is blitzed by "today's" vehicles. Well, today's vehicles are way ahead now, and we can find electronics that exceed Apollo computing power everywhere. This article compares the guidance computer to a 2009 smart phone. I tried to find the exact specifications for something less conspicuous like anti-lock brakes but alas.

Where am I going with this? Recently I was cleaning out the extended garage and found an old computer I was yet to dispose of. This was partially due to nostolgia, and another part of me thought I might be able to find some use for it - well, I did find a use - amusement.

As I pulled it apart, I thought I'd take a few photos and document the occasion. It was dated 1999 so I imagine this is what got me through university. I know 1999 isn't exactly looking through a wondrous time portal, but it was enough to keep me amused for a while - amusement which started with the 5 1/4 inch disk drive!
Looking in the guts I'm surprised at the lack of a modem, unless I moved that 56k beast to a different pc. Another look at the front shows it is a bit of a mutt, with cd drive upgraded to dvd & pasty old disk drive installed to pilfer data off old disks.

The computer belonged to the era where hard disk space was doubling and this affected what (and the amount of) software you could install. Today, space requirements for software such as your operating system is simply absorbed into the mass amount of storage available. I could tell you DOS6 fitted on a handful of 3.5" disks, I can't tell you how much Windows 7 now consumes. Yes, my first computer was an XT using DOS 3ish.

Here is a fuzzy look at the mutilated insides, the close-up shows the original 1GB HD, and the 8GB upgrade, with the Pentium II core and 64mb RAM.

The back of the PC shows the March 1999 build date, with pride by PLE Computers - our local mainstay.

I just noticed the whopping 2 USB ports, wasn't much need for them back then, because at this time for data transfer we all used ZIP drives.

A nice 100/250mb of data in the one iomega disk, great for holding (and potentially losing) all my university work. I was prudent with my backing up - apart from theft and stupidity, with excessive use we also had to avoid the click of death, which (why should I be surprised) you can listen to on Wikipedia.

And on a side thought, one of the podcasts I listen to talked about how much data capacity exists around the world (if that's the right phrase to use) - a result of some study. A secondary finding to that was much of the world's data is redundant. Isn't that a fascinating conclusion, but when you think about it, it becomes completely obvious. We are all consumers of data, downloading what companies around the world have to offer. We also share information - music, videos, photos - all of which could easily be replicated on multiple computers, backup disks, internet servers. I'd like to know how much purely unique data might exist out there? Perhaps a mass amount - I wonder how much the LHC would produce in a few minutes?

Random mentations of an Oracle developer...

Off topic - excellent computing award

I have been cleaning out the garage and I found a box full of stuff my mum kept from school.

Turns out back when in primary (grade) school when I was twelve (the days when I used already dating logo and what I'm sure was this mathematical adventure), I was given a slight insight into what was to become of my career - an A5 sized certificate.

Have I reached excellence? Well, that's a subjective term (with a good blog entry I just can't find)... but for today, may the fourth be with you while enjoying this very timely parody worth watching.

ScottWe