So who's the new old guy?

[bplus]

Hi oldguy, welcome to the forum.

I see you hanging around today, do you want to introduce yourself or say something of your QB experience?

Say, how the heck did you find us anyway?

[oldguy]

Hey,

I am an old guy, 64 y/o. I learned DEC's BASIC-PLUS on a PDP-11 in 1972. I worked in the computer industry for 35 years, and I'm retired now. I wrote Unix kernel mode C for IBM in the 80s, C++ in the 90s, and Java immediately after it came out, I think it was 1996. Furthermore, I used to play around with QBasic, QuickBASIC, Visual C++, and Visual Basic, for home projects. I was fascinated with Microsoft's COM architecture, and fiddled around with that for a while, and same for Microsofts' MFC. I discovered QB64 a number of years ago, but I can't remember how I found it. In recent weeks, I've been participating on the Facebook page for old BASIC. People there were talking about QB64, so I thought I'd dig into that again. I quickly learned that there were two forks of QB64. They recommended I look at QB64phoenix because it has more activity.

[Pete]

JAVA? Nice! So how soon can we expect a QB64 PE Android make? Is next Tuesday good for you? Oh wait, you said you're retired. How's Friday?

Kidding aside, glad you found the forum and curious if you ever spent anytime on any of the QBasic forums in the past. Your resume reminds me of my old pal Mac, who used to run The QBasic Forum, He also worked for IBM and programmed in QB, VB DOS, and Visual Basic.

BTW - Lot's of us oldsters here. In fact, you joining might have actually dropped the age curve a bit! Now if you will excuse me, it's nap time again.

Pete

[BDS107]

Hi, I'm from 1967. So today I am 55. I live in Bruges, Belgium.
My father was an electronics teacher and in the early years of computers, he had a huge interest in these "things". So the first computer came along at the end of 1979. I was 12 years old at the time. It was a Tandy TRS-80 model 1.
My LEGO blocks were put aside and from then on I programmed BASIC. After the TRS-80 Model 1 it became a Model 3 and finally a Model 4.
After the TRS-80 came the MS-DOS PC with GWBASIC, QuickBASIC and Visual Basic (for Windows). I also learned machine language on the Z-80 (TRS-80) and the 80x86 on the XT and AT PC's.
Meanwhile, I no longer program.
Early 2022 I discovered QB64 and program a bit as a hobby.

[bplus]

Wow great to have both you young'ns on board, nice experience both!

I started at college with punch cards for Cobol and Fortran?, then some sort of Unix Basic over what I call dummy terminals.
12 years later my own PC with DOS 3.1 if I recall on 8088, starting with GW-BASIC, then 496 DOS 5 and 6? and QB4.5, VB 2.0, VB DOS (the best then!) on Windows 3.1 (still a little too slow for graphics and Windows) mid 90's.

[Pete]

Wow great to have both you young'ns on board, nice experience both!

I started at college with punch cards for Cobol and Fortran?, then some sort of Unix Basic over what I call dummy terminals.
12 years later my own PC with DOS 3.1 if I recall on 8088, starting with GW-BASIC, then 496 DOS 5 and 6? and QB45.5, VB 2.0, VB DOS (the best then!) on Windows 3.1 (still a little too slow for graphics and Windows) mid 90's.

Punch cards were aptly named. Of course kick cards, bludgeon cards, axe cards, and rip cards were probably close runners up. What a royal PITA!  I had a chem lab instructor who required we did all of our test answers on those damn things. Mess up one hole, in 40 cards, and your grade would drop. No extra cards, stingy SOB. We had to wait in line for well over an hour to use the few machines in the lab. I ditched that idiot "professor" and got a normal human in his place. She was great. I ended up tutoring chem to other pre-med students because of her ability to do her job, teach. Good teachers make a real difference, but as of late, we have a nation full of indoctrinating morons who make even my numbskull punch card professor look like a saint. Anyway, rant aside, I always found it ironic my initial experience with "computers" was so negative. Actually, it was a lot like typing class back in the 70's. I declined to take typing in high school, because I was sure secretarial work was not in my future. Now I type very often, fairly fast, but in a very unconventional manner. Sorry, have to go. The boss needs coffee and my pantyhose are riding up something fierce.

Pete

[JRace]

@bplus : You had to wait until college for the "Hollerith card" experience?  I got that in high school.  Fortran IV & Cobol on an IBM 1130 with a whopping 8K of core RAM.  The school had a few TRS-80 Model Is, one of which had an expansion interface and a floppy drive.  Oh, AND it was attached to an original Radio Shack line printer, which needed at least two minutes, IIRC, to print a full page, with no lower-case letters and no graphics.  (I went through a phase of disassembling TRSDOS where I would start printing a source listing, then we would all head out to a nearby deli, and by the time we got back the printer might be finished.)

Those TRS-80s were for the Basic class, but you had to pass both Fortran AND Cobol before you could sign up for Basic.  That didn't stop a handful of us from hanging around and using the micros after school.  While the sporty types were out on the field, my friends & I were in the "computer lab" (aka the head math teacher's classroom) with the lights out, lit up by the CRTs, with a radio blasting.  (We would have to pack out and make ourselves scarce from time to time, to make room for the school district's Continuing Education computer classes for adults.)

The school finally ditched the mainframe and used the money saved from just one year of leasing & supporting that beast to buy a dozen or so shiny new TRS-80 Model 4s with floppy drives, along with Fortran & Cobol compilers for them.

By then, we knew enough that the teachers recruited us to help set everything up and show them how to use the compilers.

Ironically (or maybe not), even though I was already a self-taught, self-proclaimed TRS-80 wiz by the time I took the class, my grades were poor because I spent too much of my lab time working on my own programs rather than classwork.



( @BDS107 : I envy your start.  For years I was a hacker without a computer, until I saved up enough money to buy a used Model 4.)

( @Pete : Yeah, punch cards sucked, but having access to the card punches' chad bucket opened the door for all kinds of mischief with those tiny bits of very staticky card stock!)

[Pete]

... and they sucked, too.

Need to import Beavis and Butthead emojis.

Pete

[BDS107]

On the TRS-80, I had the Super Utility program early on. Ideal for hacking, clearing passwords, copying secure diskettes, etc.
Combined with Superzap and Copycat, I felt like a whiz kid who could solve any problem.
The problem was that those programs were harder to get since I live in Belgium. But it was still possible through computer clubs.

[oldguy]

JAVA? Nice! So how soon can we expect a QB64 PE Android make? Is next Tuesday good for you? Oh wait, you said you're retired. How's Friday?

Kidding aside, glad you found the forum and curious if you ever spent anytime on any of the QBasic forums in the past. Your resume reminds me of my old pal Mac, who used to run The QBasic Forum, He also worked for IBM and programmed in QB, VB DOS, and Visual Basic.

BTW - Lot's of us oldsters here. In fact, you joining might have actually dropped the age curve a bit! Now if you will excuse me, it's nap time again.

Pete

No, I have not been active on any QBasic forums in the past.