4 ms·

I'm a 62, almost 63, year old programmer. Thanks for being open-minded. It's been a great career for me. My first computer was a PDP-8/E and an ASR-33 teletype.

by jes 4y ago

I'm a 62, almost 63, year old programmer. Thanks for being open-minded. It's been a great career for me. My first computer was a PDP-8/E and an ASR-33 teletype. I've had the good fortune to see a lot of computer history over the years. I still do embedded systems programming for work and hope to continue to do so for another five years. I've used UNIX most of my career.

ncmncm 4y ago
Thinking back, maybe the first useful program I ever wrote was on a printing calculator that could remember a sequence of operations -- maybe up to 64? -- but had no branch instructions. You would push "go" each time it stopped, kachunk kachunk kachunk..., until it finished. The program figured loan interest payments. (Printing calculators used to be loud.)
randmeerkat 4y ago
> I still do embedded systems programming for work… What are your favorite resources for learning / reference in regards to embedded systems?
- mianos 4y ago
  Buy a few ESP32 boards and make an LED blink. Once you get past that, the sky is the limit.
- jes 4y ago
  I don't know if I have favorite resources to recommend. I know there are a ton of YouTube videos and podcasts that offer a lot of good ideas. I like reading the Linux Kernel Mailing List and tech notes. Simply buying any one of the cheap boards you can find online (if they have supply) and trying to get something like a JTAG debugger working will be beneficial to you. Just try to get something simple going on bare metal. It's been a while since I worked with PIC microcontrollers, yet as I remember there is a lot you can do with some of the cheap PIC devices, a breadboard, and an investment of $100 - $200 in electronic parts. It was important for me to build up a modest lab of electronic test equipment, power supplies, breadboards, etc. Wishing you success, whatever route you go.

4 ms·

I'm a 62, almost 63, year old programmer. Thanks for being open-minded. It's been a great career for me. My first computer was a PDP-8/E and an ASR-33 teletype.

by jes 4y ago

ncmncm 4y ago
Thinking back, maybe the first useful program I ever wrote was on a printing calculator that could remember a sequence of operations -- maybe up to 64? -- but had no branch instructions. You would push "go" each time it stopped, kachunk kachunk kachunk..., until it finished. The program figured loan interest payments. (Printing calculators used to be loud.)
randmeerkat 4y ago
> I still do embedded systems programming for work… What are your favorite resources for learning / reference in regards to embedded systems?
- mianos 4y ago
  Buy a few ESP32 boards and make an LED blink. Once you get past that, the sky is the limit.
- jes 4y ago
  I don't know if I have favorite resources to recommend. I know there are a ton of YouTube videos and podcasts that offer a lot of good ideas. I like reading the Linux Kernel Mailing List and tech notes. Simply buying any one of the cheap boards you can find online (if they have supply) and trying to get something like a JTAG debugger working will be beneficial to you. Just try to get something simple going on bare metal. It's been a while since I worked with PIC microcontrollers, yet as I remember there is a lot you can do with some of the cheap PIC devices, a breadboard, and an investment of $100 - $200 in electronic parts. It was important for me to build up a modest lab of electronic test equipment, power supplies, breadboards, etc. Wishing you success, whatever route you go.