TRS80?

Who else tried to use the cursor to improve things in the video ?

Yes! This is bringing back memories. Bigger cursors, colors, and so on.

I also used block-characters to make boxes too in my batch files. I learned to use the IF == $string$ command line and made a menu. Press 1 for Windows (Windows 3.1), Press 2 for Games, Press 3 for Utilities, etc.
 
big cursors, big 40 character (width/column) text & ASCII inverse Atari BASIC

s1e4-aml-ss-load1.png

keeping it simple with a poking good time using character strings :p

Please note: this is not my program :eek:
Just a quick google search screen shot; a quick follow up attempt at running it does not work in Atari800 Mac X
"error 16 line 100"
Was not going to troubleshoot this one tonight but nevertheless...

Atari BASIC & OSS BASIC XL/XE Errors
16 RETURN with no corresponding GOSUB
 
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Good ole CGA. Gotta love it. My first few "monitors" were 12" black & white TVs. Then a 12" color (CGA). First real monitor was 12" color, CGA. Second monitor was VGA, but black & white. However, at that time, the B&W was preferable since it was so much better resolution for doing word processing.

And don't forget 2400 baud modems and the screeching noise that they made while connecting. Good times.
 
Good ole CGA. Gotta love it. My first few "monitors" were 12" black & white TVs. Then a 12" color (CGA). First real monitor was 12" color, CGA. Second monitor was VGA, but black & white. However, at that time, the B&W was preferable since it was so much better resolution for doing word processing.

And don't forget 2400 baud modems and the screeching noise that they made while connecting. Good times.

Yup. I forgot about that, but it was so cool having color. My Visual V1083 (Commuter Computer) had CGA output via a composite and an RGB port. The composite port had more colors, but the RGB port was so much clearer.

I had an Atari 800 and learned a lot writing BASIC programs on it. Later on the V1050 had C-Basic or compiled Basic. This was much easier to use because the writing was somewhat freeform, but I was used to writing line numbers so I used those. I got better at it later on, and used line numbers as blocks.

100 Start of program
code
code
code
If blah, goto 200
200
code
code.

200 Sub-routine
etc.
...

With C-Basic, the code was written in Line Edit, the CP/M equivalent of Edlin. I hated not seeing the code, so I used WordStar non-document mode instead.
 
Fortran in college: large 2 story building that housed NOTHING other than the Sperry Rand computer. Punch cards. Yeehaw. Graduated to Basic on the Cocos and never went any further.

Now, I fix, repair, build computers. Most of my "fixing" time is working on friends' machines that run Windows and have more viruses and spyware than you can count. Myself, I got introduced to Linux about 11 years ago and fell in love with it. That is what I am using right now. I dual boot this machine with Xubuntu and Win10. Win10 is ONLY used for Trainz. (I wish that they would make Trainz available in Linux: it would run so much faster and smoother.
 
Had to reply/post again.

Fairly close on the family tree (but not so close that any one of my relatives knows him) is Elmer Sperry, coinventor of the gyroscopic compass or gyrocompass and founder of Sperry Gyroscope Company which (more or less essentially) became Sperry Rand. There was also a Sperry Electric Railway company, though I know nothing about that enterprise.


I consider myself to be very fortunate to have started learning BASIC in second grade in 1978 from a science teacher who had an Apple II he'd made from kit and an Apple II he bought made. I learned Integer BASIC and Applesoft BASIC and how to use the paddle controller (for playing Apple II Star Wars) with PEEK and POKE for simple user input. TRS80 Level I BASIC and MS BASIC followed later in elementary school (consider that to be lucky as well).

I managed to teach myself a decent amount of BASIC and PILOT on an Atari 400 by reading De Re Atari and COMPUTE! before hitting a hard wall with 6502 assembly and machine language programming at around 13. No books or magazines helped with that attempt. Learned hex conversions pretty well but never could produce any useful ml graphics or sound code. C/C++ in my twenties was easier than 6502 assembly and ml but by then I had lost "the bug."


Salutations and thank you to ALL programmers out there -- past, present and future!
In the 21st century you literally make the world go round!
 
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34cY9Bj9
I was fortunate to have one of these handheld wonders:
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Radio-Shack-TRS80-PC1-2.jpg


My first computer on which I "cut my teeth," however, was the NCR-101> I programmed using RPG entered through punched cards.
 
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