Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
This is more or less what we were taught on in high school in the early 1980s.
I was able to take "computers 1" where we spent an entire quarter programming the computer to draw six lines in the shape of a house. I was unable to take "computers 2" because my math skills were not good enough. Instead I took study hall, where I spent all of my time in the computer lab teaching myself how to code in basic, Fortran, and COBOL. While the "smart people" in class were learning how to draw simple pictures in class I was writing entire programs including a contact book where I stored contacts, and a letter writing program which was a super simple version of Microsoft Word.
I went into the military and other than seeing a few computers in our admin area, I had pretty much forgotten all about computers. It wasn't until I started work at the phone company that I saw computers in the real work place and got interested again.
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Wow that's so.. strange! It is a little similar to my own High School experience. We had "Data 1 & 2" in Grade 9, "Data 3&4" in Grade 10, and "5&6" in grade 11.
I talked my way into getting Data 1&2 in Grade 8, and all they were teaching was Punch Cards. Seriously! They didn't even have the machines, we just had to make holes in the cards with a bent paper clip, and the teacher graded us by looking through the holes.
I went to the principal and told him I loved computers, but that this class was useless. When he told me I had to stay, I told him I could complete the final exam which included some computer history too, way before the class even finished.
He didn't test me, but in Grade 8, he let me take Data 3&4 and 5&6 all in the same year. This was alot more fun because we got to use real computers (the TRS-80, a Terminal connected to an HP200f time share computer), and we got to learn real languages like Basic, Fortan and Cobol.
Surprisingly, this didn;t make me a hit with the ladies. (They mostly enjoyed jocks beating up the computer nerds). godamcfuckingbastardjocksoooOooohthosesonsofabitch es....