MX Linux Forum

Did you start with BASIC ? This pic came from "The Philosophy of FORTH", a system that I tried instead of BASIC - ended up learning Pascal
instead of either.

I have that t-shirt.... I actually started a 'tad earlier' with punch paper tape, magnetic stripe ledgers and gp300 assembler language. The first program I wrote was in 128 words of memory using punch paper tape with memory overlays for Broadalbin Central School District in Broadalbin NY.....

I met punched paper tape well before meeting binary arithmetic. The communications team used punched tape for both teletypes and morse when I started work in the NZ Weather Service. Could read the Morse tapes but never really got to grips with the 5 hole code. Fifteen years later was inducted
into the mysteries of IT. Was given a few months to learn the basics then spent a few years teaching technicians the basics of digital maths, Boolean Algebra etc. along with an introduction to solid state electronics. After years of analogue and vacuum tubes, my employer the NZ CAA (not unlike FAA
in USA), had suddenly realised the impending revolution to using transistors and counting in twos instead of tens. A group of us were moved out of the fixit group into a training team. Being first there, I was lumbered with the basics, but have never regretted it. First program I wrote was in machine
language.

Now I understand why GOTO was frowned upon --
it might lead to parts unknown. :)

I learned Pascal by a so-called extramural course. Most of it by correspondence, then two weeks at the University for our practical, real pressure cooker approach. We were drilled into thinking that Pascal was the only way to go. One lecturer was definitely anti_C. We were told that programming in C was easy but one could easily make mistakes and shoot oneself in the foot! Furthermore we were told that C++ was an improvement, but if we made an error, any shooting in the foot with C++ resulted in blowing your whole bl.... leg off. I never studied C !

Odd that GOTO is permitted in Pascal and if used rarely and correctly it can solve a few problems.

I learnt some Apple basic as a kid, with the Apple II.

Goto was a legitimate command there.

goto is also a legitimate command in C and of course C++ its use is discouraged though. And it's actually not a new evolution, Dijksra wrote about this before I was born in 1968, here's an analysis of his letter: http://david.tribble.com/text/goto.html

We were forbidden to use GOTO when working in Pascal, I was a bit lucky in that I had not really used BASIC so had not developed the habit. FORTH was interesting but I was too lazy to work with it. I understand that it has been used for control of telescopes in astronomy. The way that FORTH was structured ruled out use of GOTO.

LOL That image!! Sure brings back memories of the commodore days for me hahaha