Computer Classes 1969

Nathan said:
I didn't get to use a computer until the mid seventies in college. Programming FORTRAN on punch cards, fed them to a CDC 3150 mainframe.

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I started taking programming classes in college in 1969 using a DEC PDP-10 mainframe. In those days, programming entailed getting an assignment and then, with pencil and paper, creating flow charts and writing out (what you hoped was) code that would perform the desired task. You then took your hand written code to a room with a bunch of barrel-keyed keypunch machines and created your punch cards.

You dropped your stack of punch cards off at the computer center and returned the next day to pick up that evil green-bar printout that often told you that your program had failed, possible why it failed, but of course NOT how to fix it. Back to the hand written charts and code, make changes, and try again, repeat until successful.

It was actually pretty effective in forcing you to learn from your mistakes.
 

Nope, didn't take computer classes, I was rather hit and miss-mostly miss, I was "one of the first kids on my block" to get a computer. Adding a printer was a full weekend job. It definitely wasn't plug and play like today. In order to get the printer to work, you had to type in this huge line of stuff , like "<A> exe,gtr.{o9gth( ab){Aa./a/........ If you're dyslexic like I am, it was hell getting it right.
 

Alligatorob said:
My first computer experience was in the mid 70s. Used cards, had to drop them off at the I/O window in the computer building and come back for the output a few hours or even a day or two later. Still thought it was amazing!

I remember when the college got their first CRT terminals. I thought they were far too complicated and could never replace cards...
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When I was going through my first divorce I would go to the university's computer lab in the middle of the night. The "turnaround time" would be only a couple minutes. ;)
 
I never had computer training in high school; there just weren’t any personal computers back then. In college, there were only mainframe computers used via terminals by engineering and science majors. Beginning employment with rotary phones on the desks and secretaries using typewriters, I had an early model Apple computer plopped in front of me one day that I was expected to run a program on, all without any training.

All of my computer knowledge I acquired piecemeal from there, much by trial and error. Early personal computers also tended to be balky and exceed their feeble memory limits often, freezing up and making you feel panicked that you had destroyed them. Printer problems were common, and their resolution often required someone knowledgeable to be called in. I really wanted to boot the computer, as in kicking it… 💻
 
Well the computer that I had in college (graduated in 1967, physics major) was called a slide rule! No electricity needed. (I still have mine somewhere, I think.)
 
Related but a slightly different track. Who remembers early portable computers like Kaypro? Two floppy disk drives. I took my first computer class in college in 1966 or 67. In that class we were using Fortran and creating punch cards for computers. Never did well in that class.
 
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