
What it was like learning programming in the early 1970s - realpanzer
https://expertain.net/what-it-was-like-learning-programming-in-the-early-1970s/
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daly
I wrote my first program on a Wang "desktop". You hand-punched cards with
binary data, put the card into a clamshell-like reader, which read the card.
It was quite a learning experience.

Later at school I worked on a remote IBM machine through a dial-up and
teletype connection. I got a job running the "computer room" (teletypes and
then selectrics) for the 4 years I was there.

Learning involved random encounters with information. I got a copy of the
hardware maintenance manuals for the IBM 360. Someone from Rutgers told me
about state machines and turing machines. I learned Basic, the Fortran, the
Lisp 1.5 (I've been a lisper ever since).

My undergrad major was math so I learned numerical integration (e.g. the
method of false position). There was no "computer science" degree or
department. It was taught by math professors who were one chapter ahead of the
class. I wrote (ghost) some of the final exams for some of the classes.

Graduate school was computer science from the engineering department where we
learned analog computers, Karnaugh maps, and clocked/unclocked circuits. I did
"machine vision" work with images from bozes of punched cards (we didn't have
a camera).

The field was not nearly as complex then. You could "learn it all".

Now I get to play with (the IBM) quantum computer, do machine learning, and
use program proof techniques, each of which involved a LOT of youtube videos.
It is hard to keep up but still great fun.

