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Sigh! brings back memories. 1979 - Reigate Grammar School. The school didn't offer a comp. sci. exam but we had a computer club (although no computer). I remem

Sigh! brings back memories. 1979 - Reigate Grammar School. The school didn't offer a comp. sci. exam but we had a computer club (although no computer). I remember using a card punch to write a factorial program. I can't remember the language. The cards were taken to an insurance company down the road who did actually have a computer. A couple of days later you'd get a print-out of the compilation errors, and you'd start again. The future seemed so exiting back then. On this basis, I went to Leeds University to study computing where on the first day, they introduced us (as a prank) ... to the card punch machine. Now get your new-fangled glass teletypes off my lawn!

anta40 11y ago
A computer club, but no computer? OK this is weird. So what did you guys do at the club, then?
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  > The cards were taken to an insurance company down the road who did actually have a computer.
- stan_rogers 11y ago
  It was actually pretty common at the time. At my school, we used electrographic cards (basically a cross between a punch card and a MarkSense test card, where you coloured in the dots with an Electrographc (#2, HB) pencil¹). We used either the local university's computer or one of INCO's, depending on their own needs at the time. (Not ony were computers expensive, they were also quite slow, so INCO's would be off-limits during quarterlies and at tax time and the university's during enrolment/scheduling and exams.) ¹ No, that didn't mean less work, since electrographics didn't tolerate erasures well. You still had to throw away the card and write a new one.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  It's much like an astronomy club without a star or planet. You study the theory and hope to see the practice one day. My junior high (in Finland) had some programming lessons included in the mathematics classes in circa 1981. Fragments of ALGOL and such. Got the first computers in 1982. (They were Swedish ABC-80's; Z80, 16 K RAM, black and white displays with block graphics, one machine equipped with a disk drive, others with a "local area network" implemented with the cassette tape interface which was transmitting and receiving an FSK signal at something like 300 bits per second so you could transfer programs between the units. Far more advanced than paper punch tape, which I only learned to use with a telex & encryption machine in the army...)

anta40 11y ago

A computer club, but no computer? OK this is weird. So what did you guys do at the club, then?

chrisseaton 11y ago
> The cards were taken to an insurance company down the road who did actually have a computer.
stan_rogers 11y ago
It was actually pretty common at the time. At my school, we used electrographic cards (basically a cross between a punch card and a MarkSense test card, where you coloured in the dots with an Electrographc (#2, HB) pencil¹). We used either the local university's computer or one of INCO's, depending on their own needs at the time. (Not ony were computers expensive, they were also quite slow, so INCO's would be off-limits during quarterlies and at tax time and the university's during enrolment/scheduling and exams.) ¹ No, that didn't mean less work, since electrographics didn't tolerate erasures well. You still had to throw away the card and write a new one.
ptaipale 11y ago
It's much like an astronomy club without a star or planet. You study the theory and hope to see the practice one day. My junior high (in Finland) had some programming lessons included in the mathematics classes in circa 1981. Fragments of ALGOL and such. Got the first computers in 1982. (They were Swedish ABC-80's; Z80, 16 K RAM, black and white displays with block graphics, one machine equipped with a disk drive, others with a "local area network" implemented with the cassette tape interface which was transmitting and receiving an FSK signal at something like 300 bits per second so you could transfer programs between the units. Far more advanced than paper punch tape, which I only learned to use with a telex & encryption machine in the army...)