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We are finally coming to the era when the first amateurs who grew up with Personal Computers are starting to die of old age. Stuff in BASIC coded by somebody i

by muyuu 15y ago

We are finally coming to the era when the first amateurs who grew up with Personal Computers are starting to die of old age. Stuff in BASIC coded by somebody in the anonymity of the pre-Internet. Maybe something truly novel in its time or even now. There's something extremely romantic to this, like a rescued roll from the Library of Alexandria. Naturally, most of that anonymous work will be lost forever. Heck, most of my 8-bit era stuff stored in tapes and 5 1/4 floppies must be dead by now. I had some original Sountracker mod files from Amiga times and when I tried recovering those it was too late.

Retric 15y ago
This reminds me that my father had a printout for the first SGML (standard generalized markup language) parser which is only interesting as that's the parent language for HTML, XML, etc. Apparently he was on the standard committee while working for the navy and wrote a parser to verify that the standard was correct, but it was far to slow for machines of that time period or some such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Lan... PS: Not that I would be able to recognize what some random FORTRAN code did, but it's probably worth poking around the barn.
blacksmythe 15y ago
>> first amateurs who grew up with Personal Computers are starting to die of old age There are few people older than early 50's who had a computer in high school. Although mortality starts to rise in the early 50's, I wouldn't call this dying of old age.
- muyuu 15y ago
  Actually "old age" is never a reason to die, but heart stroke and cancer are most common natural life terminators in our species and they are already likely in your 50's. So yep... they are starting to basically die of old age.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  The error is in the phrase "grew up with", as it suggests they were kids in the early days of personal computers. The adult amateurs who went from programmable calculators to early single-board microcomputers are the generation who are starting to die off. My Dad is of that cohort. In his 40s he went from programmable calculators to building a simple computer with an octal keypad and a row of LEDs for output, to working on an AIM-65, coding in basic and (I think) machine code. He worked in elevator maintenance, being in charge of service in much of Connecticut for one company. At one point he designed and built, with circuit boards he etched himself, some kind of electronic box which I think the company adopted? Maybe? For some kind of elevator-related purpose. I was never clear on what it did, and he probably doesn't remember now. He didn't have an academic background that would have exposed him to computing, having joined the Navy at 15. He later took some radio repair/electronics night school classes. He's 80 now, and has forgotten most of that stuff, and uses a MacBook and an iPad.

by muyuu 15y ago

Retric 15y ago

This reminds me that my father had a printout for the first SGML (standard generalized markup language) parser which is only interesting as that's the parent language for HTML, XML, etc. Apparently he was on the standard committee while working for the navy and wrote a parser to verify that the standard was correct, but it was far to slow for machines of that time period or some such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Lan... PS: Not that I would be able to recognize what some random FORTRAN code did, but it's probably worth poking around the barn.

blacksmythe 15y ago

>> first amateurs who grew up with Personal Computers are starting to die of old age There are few people older than early 50's who had a computer in high school. Although mortality starts to rise in the early 50's, I wouldn't call this dying of old age.

muyuu 15y ago
Actually "old age" is never a reason to die, but heart stroke and cancer are most common natural life terminators in our species and they are already likely in your 50's. So yep... they are starting to basically die of old age.
jonhendry 15y ago
The error is in the phrase "grew up with", as it suggests they were kids in the early days of personal computers. The adult amateurs who went from programmable calculators to early single-board microcomputers are the generation who are starting to die off. My Dad is of that cohort. In his 40s he went from programmable calculators to building a simple computer with an octal keypad and a row of LEDs for output, to working on an AIM-65, coding in basic and (I think) machine code. He worked in elevator maintenance, being in charge of service in much of Connecticut for one company. At one point he designed and built, with circuit boards he etched himself, some kind of electronic box which I think the company adopted? Maybe? For some kind of elevator-related purpose. I was never clear on what it did, and he probably doesn't remember now. He didn't have an academic background that would have exposed him to computing, having joined the Navy at 15. He later took some radio repair/electronics night school classes. He's 80 now, and has forgotten most of that stuff, and uses a MacBook and an iPad.