Early Programming Languages consisted of Basic, FORTRAN, and COBOL.
The first program ever written was done by Tom Kilburn in 1948 . It had 17 instructions. That was before my time (I was only 13 then) but it was the beginning. I have no idea what language he used. More than likely it was numeric mechanical instructions. Pretty elementary.
By the time I became interested in computers and thought about it as a career, the computer industry was into more structured programming languages.
My first interest came from my brother who as retired Navy went to work for IBM. He was a hardware technician and learned the trade in classes at IBM. It well suited him as he was very mechanical, having rebuilt a pin ball machine when he was about twelve. He would talk to me about his job, but it was mostly beyond me. I wasn’t interested in circuits and vacuum tubes. But the overall concept was intriguing to me.
Teletype Tape
My curiosity got another tug when I was asked to type instruction onto teletype tape for some electronic equipment that was being sold by the company I was working for. I was basically a secretary. The electronic equipment was used to test semiconductors and the manufacturer was teaching a class in our office. The class was for technicians who would be using the machine and they had to learn to program it.
Since my work required me to take orders for various types of electronic equipment. Power supplies, voltmeters, and as mentioned above semiconductor test equipment. There was a night education course being offered at one of the high schools in Basic Electricity/Electronics. I was encouraged to take the course so I would understand some of the terminologies. I’ll digress enough here to say that is about all I got out of that class.
BUT, while waiting in line to sign up for the course, I noticed that there was also a course in Basic Computer Programming. Now that really piqued my interest, so I ended up signing up for both classes.
Classes, classes and more classes
The first weeks of that programming class was a nightmare. I’d listen to the instructor, but it was like he was speaking Greek. Nothing was making any sense. The pieces just weren’t fitting together for me. The words were familiar, like the word File. But how did that relate to a computer? A file was a piece of paper or a folder for holding pieces of paper. But little by little, I began to understand.
For the next two years – four class semesters – I worked all day and went to school at night and struggled with homework exercises. But I loved it!! I always loved puzzles and this was like the ultimate puzzle. How to write the code that would make the computer do what I wanted it to. How to get it right.
Many, many years later, I taught a basic computing class to some high school kids. The easiest way for me to explain a computer program is to recount the first exercise that I gave them. Write down the steps that would be necessary for you to get up from the table and walk out of the closed room.
A Quick Programming Lesson
As I’ve said above, the computer is a dumb machine. You have to tell it EVERYTHING. Every single step and leave nothing out. Well the students started out saying Step 1 was – Get up. So I asked them to do it and they all began by Pushing back their chair so they could get up. The exercise went on from there, but you see the idea.
So step one in learning to program is learning to think in precise logical sequence. No shortcuts. Defining every single step along the way. And, this is the biggest, never ASSUMING anything. We had a saying that to Assume is to make an Ass-of- U-and Me. And the next thing is to accept the fact that the computer is never wrong. We have created the error, so we have to find our mistake.
FORTRAN AND COBOL – Programming Languages
There were two languages that I had to learn. The first, supposedly the simpler, was FORTRAN., which stands for formula translation. It was used mostly for scientific and mathematical applications. I liked math, but not so much science and I found the coding difficult.
The second was COBOL which stood for “common business-oriented language“. It is made up of English-like instructions designed for business applications. This suited me better since by then I had worked in business for almost twenty years. I knew and understood the workflow. Ordering processes, accounting principals, and manufacturing procedures. This became my career for the next thirty years. And I loved every minute of it.
With the onset of the personal computer and also the Internet, newer languages like JAVA have become more in demand. But that was fine because after 30 years, at age 66 I thought I was ready to retire. Little did I know that I would become bored and set out to do this online blogging. And now remembering all this old stuff. LOL
Back in Demand – HELP WANT ADS
One last note here before I end. In researching some of this, I just came across some HELP WANT ADS in InfoWorld published just one week ago. It seems that many states are badly in need of some help. This virus shutdown is causing large scale unemployment. Seem that many of the states – New Jersey, Kansas and Connecticut were named – are still running 30-year-old programs written in COBOL. These programs are needing some changes to handle this new situation. I’m guessing maybe fields are too small to hold the larger numbers.
The reason this thought popped into my head is because I had it happen to me once. I was maintaining accounting programs at Atari and business was booming. One week we started lopping off high digits in the numbers and everything was Out of Balance. My Accounts Receivable Supervisor yelled HELP, not know why her accounts weren’t balancing. That was just before a four day Memorial Day weekend. Guess where I spent that weekend.
I can’t think of any funny stories to recount during this time about this subject, but it did provide me with a very satisfying and lucrative career that I absolutely loved and never got tired of.
Punch Line Anyone?
There was an old saying, “Old programmers never die, they just — ??? code away?” I don’t remember if that is right. Help anyone.
