What's Your Level Of Computer Knowledge

dj51d · **Posted:** Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:40 pm

We're all here, so you must have some knowledge of computers.

I started out with the Commodore 64 when I was a kid, even still have mine(3 in fact). I got my first PC in 1996, and did my first homebuilt PC a few years later. I've been programming as a hobby for nearly 10 years now, and I've made living programming for about 4 years. At one time I was a sys admin for a small mom & pop ISP.

Scott Rose · **Posted:** Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:57 pm

Sort of in the middle between experienced and power. I'm more hardware skilled. My first computer was a Atari 1200xl followed by a 520ST. My first PC was a 386DX40 bought in the early 90s. I tend to built computers rather than buy them though the one I'm on is an exception. Price was too good.

My programming knowledge is limited to what I have taught myself. I learned HTML for the view source feature and experimentation. Basically reversed engineered features I liked. You can see this if you explore the site, especially the Luftwaffe section. You'll find some really basic pages on the sections that haven't been updated yet.

mrhenniger · **Posted:** Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:01 pm

Remember the Commodore Pet computers? They were the forerunners of the VIC-20, and later came the Commodore 64s. I wrote my first program on a Pet. My Dad got a Apple 2E clone in the early 80s and I was hooked on programming then. I got a EE degree in the early 90s, but didn't get get any programming courses. My company paid for me to go back to school (I am one lucky son of a...), so now I have the software education I was missing and can combine some software skills with my hardware background.

It is working well for me. I have written programs in Basic and Java, but most of my experience is in C++. I work for for the Airborne Division of General Dynamics Canada up here in Ottawa.

On the side I head up the IT Support Team for Project North Star.

That is the brief version of my resume.

Interesting topic. Looking forward to more replies.

Can anyone recommend the best way to learn some web based programming. I would like to learn how to create web pages and the like. I would be a handy thing to have in the back pocket.

Regards,

Mike

dj51d · **Posted:** Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:22 pm

mrhenniger wrote:

Remember the Commodore Pet computers?

The Commodore PET is a little before my time, the C64 was introduced to the world in the same year I was born, and was still for sale by the time I was 9. Can you imagine that kind of longevity for a computer system now?

As for web programmng, Webmonkey has some excellent articles on authoring and design, all the way from beginning HTML to dynamic HTML with JavaScript. I learned HTML from similar online tutorials, and the view source feature of the web browser. If you are interested in dynamic web pages(as opposed to dynamic HTML), I would reccommend you check out php, which is avaible on all platforms and directly from a large number of hosting providers. PHP is similar to C/C++, and is quite powerfull, the current incarnation of the WIX runs on PHP.

I kind of left out my programming experience in my first post didn't I. I have in the past been known to program in BASIC, pascal, C, C++, and Java. I worked for a small company called PWS Inc.(now defunct) where I worked on a Point of Sale system written in C for a few years. I now work as a web devloper for Dennis Kirk, using an excellent(but quite expensive) Java ecommerce platform called ATG Dynamo

Don Martin · **Posted:** Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:26 pm

I've been using PC types since 1996. Work decided that for me. I did cut my computer teeth on the old C-5A onboard maintenance computer system in the late 70's. Now that was a Monster! and by the time you printed out(no moniters) all your trouble codes and looked them all up in the code books, it was just as quick to troubleshoot the old fashioned way(you know, run the system through and using the Mk 1 Eye Ball to visually inspect :shock:

)! I got my first taste of touchscreens this summer. Keyboards are much faster!

Warhawk · **Posted:** Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:21 am

I was first introduced to computers in high school. They were the latest in high technology learning at the time, Apple IIe's. They even had green screens (woooo, an actual color and not black and white). Once I left school I did not touch another computer for about ten years, then we started to get them at work. Two years ago my sister got a Dell and set me up an e-mail account so could order parts and such online. That lasted about three months and I decieded to get my own. I'm still figuring things out. Good thing this infernal machine does most everything all by itself because I would be lost otherwise. :nuker:

Cvairwerks · **Posted:** Sat Aug 14, 2004 1:43 am

Jeez...you guys make me feel like an old fart.... Started with an IBM mainframe with a 300 baud teletype/punch tape over a POTS around 1972. Still have an 8088 with 1 meg of ram and a 10M hard drive that I keep around for running a Fortran compiler and have done some machine level programming long years ago.

Currently running an iMac online and a couple of Pentiums offline here at home. The pentiums are strictly for publishing, AutoCad and Mechanical Desktop. Going to have to drag up another one though the the 3yr old. We're rapidly running out of games for him for the iMac. What's scary about him is that he has found at least two undocumented shorcuts in System 10 all on his own and he remembers when to use them!

henning · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:36 am

late post.. missed this first time around. anyway.

well... cs degree, C background, Unix since 1982 to varying degrees,
systems engineer @ sun microsystems since 1988... sunos/solaris lives!
linux & BSD rock on as variants! I get to play with some interesting systems
but shoulda gotten started flying much earlier.. :-)

.

have sun gear questions, try me... :-)

.

henning

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

I began messing with computers back in 1978, when I took an RPG-II class at the post-graduate school of engineering, while I was still an undergrad.

Later in 1978, I won one of three slots for computer training with IBM in Guatemala, where I began learning IBM 360s and 370s stuff. I wasn't really that good at programming, because for the longest of times, I did not even pay attention to the logic flowchart for RPG . . . Once I decided to learn it, things became easier, but again, programming was not my forte. I gravitated kind of like by default into System Programming because I could read, write and speak English better than my co-workers.

Eventually moved to an IBM 4331-J-01, which was the last mainframe I operated/supervised/thaught classes on.

Learned a little about CP/M, Basic IV, I loved Assembler but never really got deeply into its intricacies; never could master COBOL, mostly due to lack of interest on my part.

First IBM XT, I saw around 1984-85, when three of those babies cost $25,000!

My very own PC, I picked up from a dumpster when the place I worked, replaced their 486s with the first pentiums. I learned to repair computers on my own, eventually fixed six of them critters and gave them all away with the exception of one.

Bought my first PC in 1997, and after that, I have owned mostly laptops. Took a Windows 3.1 certification course back in the day, and have taken the basic stuff windows related. I know enough to get in trouble and some times I can extricate myself...

This is about it.

Saludos

Tulio

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