Rusty Nails
Country Member
Trained initially on COBOL and Fortran but then moved to a company that used IBM 360 series and moved to BAL and PL1.
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AI fails
- Thread starter briantrumpet
- Start date
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Trained initially on COBOL and Fortran but then moved to a company that used IBM 360 series and moved to BAL and PL1.
Psamathe
Guru
I used to use punch cards. 1st language Algol 68, then Fortran, assembler ...
We had paper tape machines though rarely used them (had to be careful with the punched out bits as H&S risk recognised even back then.
BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
Just finishing off my Hovis sandwich.....
I started in 1967, on a thing called an UNIVAC 1004, it was a sort of cross between a tabulator and a computer. Input was punched cards, output was print or more punched cards. No Magnetic Tape or Disk Drives. "Programs" were done by wiring a large plugboard.
A year later, moved on to IBM360, using COBOL and BAL. Followed by a variety of hardware and software:
ICL 1900 series, COBOL and PLAN.
Honeywell something or other, COBOL.
IBM System 3? (forgotten the exact number) using RPG
DEC PDP-11 Basic, Fortran,
IBM-PC (and compatibles) Basic, PASCAL, by now using LAN (Novell, then Windows)
Apple Desktops, PASCAL, LAN
Motorola 6800 desktops which I have forgotten the trade name of, PASCAL
Windows PC, Basic, VBA, SQL-Server and all that
I started in 1967, on a thing called an UNIVAC 1004, it was a sort of cross between a tabulator and a computer. Input was punched cards, output was print or more punched cards. No Magnetic Tape or Disk Drives. "Programs" were done by wiring a large plugboard.
A year later, moved on to IBM360, using COBOL and BAL. Followed by a variety of hardware and software:
ICL 1900 series, COBOL and PLAN.
Honeywell something or other, COBOL.
IBM System 3? (forgotten the exact number) using RPG
DEC PDP-11 Basic, Fortran,
IBM-PC (and compatibles) Basic, PASCAL, by now using LAN (Novell, then Windows)
Apple Desktops, PASCAL, LAN
Motorola 6800 desktops which I have forgotten the trade name of, PASCAL
Windows PC, Basic, VBA, SQL-Server and all that
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BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
enjoy!, it will not last 😂
icowden
Shaman
Oh I know. I've been listening to the Button Boys podcast. Their Discord is full of people talking about their first consoles or even the Commodore 64. Not a single mention of the trials we had in the 1980s trying to get a tape deck to exactly the right volume for 5 minutes to load Repton or Chuckie Egg.
i did mention that my first handheld game was Trojan Horse:
bobzmyunkle
Veteran
No Wang or Dec VAX?
icowden
Shaman
I wonder what the crossover is between IT nerds and cycling? I mean I know quite a few IT nerd cyclists...
PurplePenguin
Well-Known Member
This is something of a journalistic fail about AI
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/15/google-ai-recipes-food-bloggers
At its core, I am sympathetic to bloggers whose content has been stolen by AI; however, the argument that it is has been stolen, merged and made into a useless mess which consumers are perfectly content with makes little sense. It feels more likely that most consumers simply want a recipe and not a life story on a page filled with ads, and AI is able to offer this.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/15/google-ai-recipes-food-bloggers
At its core, I am sympathetic to bloggers whose content has been stolen by AI; however, the argument that it is has been stolen, merged and made into a useless mess which consumers are perfectly content with makes little sense. It feels more likely that most consumers simply want a recipe and not a life story on a page filled with ads, and AI is able to offer this.
Rusty Nails
Country Member
I confess to being a cycling nerd, but my time working in and with IT has robbed me of desire to be an IT nerd. I am less and less interested in the workings of modern technology and only concerned with how it can help me. I don't even have a bike computer or cycling app and glaze over when people talk about them.
OP
OP
briantrumpet
Shaman
A friend of mine is quite famous in the gaming world for his early work composing stuff for Amiga and Commodore 64, making the most of the extreme limitations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allister_Brimble I suspect he's probably quite glad not to be at the start of his career now, with the challenge that AI will pose to creative work, and the cost-cutting instinct of the games industry.
Pblakeney
Guru
Haven't all recipes been stole from somewhere?
It's usually just the presentation that is tweaked.
matticus
Legendary Member
I'm very much the same! Probably still a nerd deep down, but I just don't have the same enthusiasm for the latest tech, that I had back in the heady days as a teenager.
Back then I'd be excited about every extra Mb that some new machine was claiming; now I don't even know the memory/disk-space - let alone processor speed - of any of our devices. I have a GPS, but I struggle to remember the Model ID!
OP
OP
briantrumpet
Shaman
My first (tower) desktop had 1.2Gb, and several people wondered why I needed so much... "You'll never use all that!"
bobzmyunkle
Veteran
Less of that please. When I worked with DEC VAXs we had a team working on DEC PDPs. They were definitely nerds
