macOS What was you first programming language?

[jaduff46]

I'd completely forgotten about MIX and Knuth, which we used in a Fundamental Algorithms course at Duke (only Volume I of Knuth out at that time).

Don't remember many users of PL/I, although there was a senior financial engineer at GMAC in NY (client in my first job after school) who used it to write complex leasing models.

Thanks for the memories!

1. 1972 - IBM 1620 machine language (NOT assembler! Decimal numbers punched on punch cards. Yes, it was a DECIMAL machine...) in high school

2. Fortran II, high school

3. Mix assembly, college (Knuth virtual machine)

4. PL/1, college (yes, they still taught assembler before higher-level languages, and I am forever grateful)

5. Nova assembly (college engineering lab)

6. IBM 360 assembly (first part-time job in college, working on MTS operating system)

7. Snobol (about my favorite ever, I guess why I like Ruby...)

8. Intel 4040 assembly (first real job)

9. 6502 assembly (We switched processors. Visited the factory, met Chuck Peddle, father of the PET. Apple I did not yet exist).

10. 8080 assembly

11. C

Probably have written more C++ code than anything else, currently mostly Ruby.

I think I get some prize for most languages not present in the survey choices.

 

[xStep]

Does anyone remember the Beagle Bros.?

The makers of several Apple // software packages? I just came a cross a big sticker of theirs. Now where did I put it?!

 

[jiminaus]

The makers of several Apple // software packages? I just came a cross a big sticker of theirs. Now where did I put it?!

Beagle Bros Software Repository

 

[xStep]

Beagle Bros Software Repository

WOW! What a find. That leads to some other interesting things, like KansasFest which I wasn't aware that it is still going strong.

 

[pilotError]

Don't remember many users of PL/I, although there was a senior financial engineer at GMAC in NY (client in my first job after school) who used it to write complex leasing models.

Thanks for the memories!

Still pretty heavily used at the Financial firms. The mainframes are still pumping out data in the Post trade areas. I see a lot of use in ADA, PL/I and Cobol.

Talk all you want about mainframes, but I've seen guys spend an entire career on a single set of modules. Not my thing, but talk about longevity! LOL

 

[wgnoyes]

Was that the one with the lettered keys across the top? The one that used magnetic card storage, with templates on the cards? I always thought those we so cool.

That was it! It was the 2nd such HP. The first was the HP65 which dated (I think) back to 1972 or 73. I remember getting my HP67 in late 1975.

----------

Depends on whether you consider what was used to program an HP programmable calculator a programming language. If so that. If not, Fortran and 1802 assembly language.

You could do GTO's (goto's) and GSB's (go sub[routine]'s), do conditionals (compare the contents of X and Y in the stack), use indirect addressing, and set/clear/check flags. Definitely a programming language.

My first school computer was an IBM System/3 Model 10, running RPGII. To this day, I just can't respect a language where I need a template card to read a listing (to line up the columns).

My first computer I worked on was a RCA Spectra 70/45 at Coastal States Life Insurance company in Atlanta in 1977. We had Cobol and Assembler. I learned Cobol first, and assembler later.