
What was programming like before the internet? - Sumitmic
https://www.quora.com/What-was-programming-like-before-the-internet?ch=99&share=1b8a73bb&srid=uQDqk
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Normille
1: Buy computer magazine

2: find, in amongst other articles; _" Intergalactic Battle Cruiser Hyper wars
-free game code!"_ accompanied by lurid illustration showing apocalyptic space
battle, replete with explosions, mighty spaceships and exotic green-skinned
women in silver bikinis

3: Spend several hours laboriously typing the 3 or 4 pages of closely printed
code, line by line, into your Amiga/Spectrum/Dragon/Oric/BBC Micro*

[delete as appropriate]

4: Run programme

5: _" Syntax Error: Line NNN"

6: Fix Line NNN

7: Repeat stages 4 -6 several dozen times

8: Run Programme without it crashing --yay!

9: Letters _XX>* move slowly across screen from left to right... Press
spacebar... Letter _O_ moves up screen from bottom to top and hits letters _XX
>_... Computer makes feeble buzzing noise, like a bluebottle's fart... Letters
disappear... Screen prints _" GAME OVER! --PLAY AGAIN? Y/N"_...

10: Hit "N" and go outside and play football with your mates.

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Sam2347888
Also a good read: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/08/05/what-was-it-
li...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/08/05/what-was-it-like-to-be-a-
programmer-without-the-internet/)

On HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23362667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23362667)

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karmakaze
What I enjoyed about it was that you were always on the bleeding edge. CPUs,
memory, hardware I/O were all so slow you we're always looking for hardware
tricks or algorithms to make things fast enough to show your ideas.

Info came through magazines, word-of-mouth, or later BBSes/usenet newsgroups
(like shared email) received a couple times a day. So we were voracious for
it, hang out in game/computer stores to talk to people.

Knowing/remembering was automatic as there was no other way. Always
wrote/debugged programs from your head only looking up a few memory addresses
you weren't sure about. Could assemble (small program) instructions to machine
code in your head, and convert to 8-bit string. Get string address and 'call'
it. Going to each others' houses to show n tell or pair program and play video
games that we made, bought, or cracked.

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BruceEel
Nice one. I certainly remember doing more thinking before starting to code,
sketching things out on paper&post-it's. No gisting or stackoverflowing things
into an editor just to see if they compile! Never had to deal with punchcards,
fortunately, had the built-in editors of AsmOne and/or SEKA at my disposal on
the Amiga... and POKE on the MSX!

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greenyoda
> _And, as a user, you could actually call a company, get a humanoid and ask
> them a question!_

Human-based customer support still exists today, at least for expensive
enterprise software. Companies actually pay for yearly support contracts so
they can get their questions answered and get help with technical issues.

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joezydeco
O’Reilly books. Lots of them.

