I was introduced to computers in high school. I wanted to get into it in the worst way so I spoke to my guidance counselor about it. He put me into a keypunch class at a vocational school. WTF! Kids from wealthy families went right into the computer classes in the high school.
That became my first exposure. Learning to use an IBM 026 key punch machine.
Once we were finished keypunching the cards went into an IBM 083 sorter.
From there to the card scanning into the computer. We were never allowed to see or touch the actual computer. So enough of that crap. I was not learning a damn thing so I decided to take the bull by the horns.
I skipped out on the vocational school and walked into the computer room in the high school. I was not welcomed with open arms by the rich kids who dominated the computer. In fact they went out of their way to make sure that I was not wanted there. But that was how the school system functioned back then. Bastards.
I held my ground and picked up what I could by observing. I was able to get my hands on the manuals for the system. Don't ask me how I got them.
The computer was an HP 2114A with a massive 16K of RAM and a processor running at 2 microseconds. It was controlled by touch buttons on the front panel that lit up when in the on position.
You could program the machine with those switches if you were so inclined. But you would be there for days or weeks entering in your program by through a binary code. One error, shut down the computer and start all over again. The way the programming languages were loaded as well as your programs was through a punched tape that went through a high speed optical reader.
Of course for labs magnetic tape drives were used. But since this is was a high school we didn't use or have that.
The bulk of the input and output was done on a teletype. No monitor. Those didn't exist at that time. When we wanted to save our programs the teletype punched out the tape for us which you see on the left hand side of the teletype, so we could re-load the machine.
By today's standards the machine was really pathetic. Today you get a computer for a few hundred dollars with 1 to 2 GB of memory, a 2.5 Ghz processor, a 160 to 250 GB hard drive and more. A machine that would smoke the HP2114A away.
The HP2114A ran for $9,950 without the teletype, and optical tape reader. But that is today. Back then this was a true powerhouse and many labs and businesses had them along with magnetic tape drives and more. The machine was no slouch by a long shot.
I spent my time reading the manuals and teaching myself the system. I was able to sneak into the computer room when the rich kids were not around and were in their classes. From there I had some hands on time using the machine. It was not much but a few periods each week was all I could steal. The science teacher that was in charge of the machine knew that I was in there and that I was not in any of the classes. He just turned his head to the fact and left me alone. He would answer my questions in any case.
.
From that I learned BASIC, some FORTRAN, some COBOL, some ASSEMBLER, and a little CML which is a dead language now. Due to the fact that I was able to get one or two periods of hands on usage a week with the machine, I never really was able to master the languages. And since I have not used them in years please do not expect me to be able to write a single line of code. I would have to start over from square one.
A lot has changed in programming since then.
During my last year of high school the rich kids got together and complained to the science teacher that who was in charge of the computer and told him that they did not want me there because I was not in any of the classes. Because with a lot of these kids, mommy and daddy were influential with the board and system the teacher had no choice but to ban me from the computer. But the way it was done was very under handed. They made sure that the schedule to use of the machine was full all the time so this way I could not get any computing time at all. This all came about half way through my senior year. Nice.
After high school I studied electronics and the technical aspect of computers and how they operated. I even remember doing what was called wire-wrapping. Today no one knows what that was unless you came from my early years.
I ran into someone a few months ago who still had a wire wrap tool. Talk about memories.
And that in a nut shell was my beginnings into computers.
'till next time
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