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[JD]

You young wipper snappers:

My First computer was an ICL 1903T and we punched the cards by hand!

I can piss a little further than that, I think. Anyone remember paper tape?

As a student, back in 1980, I worked for a while with Ferranti in Edinburgh. I was working on a rig that tested the guidance system for the Harrier jet. At a time when the world was falling in love with the Apple IIe, I had this fridge sized 12-bit computer with 4K of magnetic core memory, which was probably cutting edge decades earlier. Its programs were loaded from paper tape. First we wrote the code on paper using assembly language. Then we hand translated that into octal machine code. Then that octal made its way to paper tape by typing the octal on a mechanical teletype (with 120dB noise levels in that room) before finally feeding the tape to the fridge and pressing the run button. Any bugs in your code were fixed with tiny strips of paper glued over the holes in the tape which were then repunched by hand.

Given the crudeness of the technologies with which they was built back then, I've no idea how those planes ever found their way at all.

BTW, the first computer I owned was a UK101 (6502 machine with 8KROM and 2K RAM). It worked well (in 1979 terms) only when the power regulator's heatsink was immersed in a class of water. So, while you waited for any program to load from tape, you could make yourself a cup of cocoa. It was an early form of multitasking

/JD

[Will_D]

I can piss a little further than that, I think. Anyone remember paper tape?

The 1903T was back in 1973 .

Paper tape was still a bit new at the time and no use for commercial DP so we used cards for the Cobol progs and also the data files.

Apart from the handpunches the BIG card punch machines/sorters and collaters were all made by a firm called Hollerith!

[HomeBrewWest]

Bad an all as the ZX81 was, it was way better than its predecessor, the ZX80. Now there was a piece of shite.

But unlike the ZX81, the ZX80 is worth an absolute fortune now. If boxed can be worth £500 or more.

Feck, I had 2 of them but they got lost along the way. Used them to program RAM in uC systems I was developing. Still have my Atari ST though.

[JD]

The 1903T was back in 1973 .

The Ferranti jobbie was from about a decade earlier than that. Although I was using it in 1980, the 'fridge' was built before the first Harrier flew (in 1964, I think).

a firm called Hollerith!

I must concede defeat in the pissing contest. You have to go back to Charles Babbage to get anything older than Holleriths.
Brings me back to my earliest programming days with Fortran. God how I hated that language. 

[JD]

I had an even rarer yoke at one stage. Made by a company in Swansea who used to make floppy drives for the Spectrum. Worth even more than the ZX80 now, and to think I sold mine, boxed with loads of extras for £80 back in the day. Would get in the region of £700 now if it's in the same nick.

I bet it'll show up on the Antiques Roadshow sometime.
"Before we consider value, could you tell me a bit about how you came by it?"
"I paid £80 to this guy who wanted to buy a corny keg"

[Will_D]

Brings me back to my earliest programming days with Fortran. God how I hated that language. 

The ICL Fortran 4K Compiler was called the 4k because it needed 4k of 24 bit memory to compile the early Fortrans.

Easy to see how the 2K Basic Prom chips for home computers became available! My Nascom had a 2k basic "compiler" (used loosley as Basic was not compiled in those days!)

When we got the 4T and 4S computers memory doubled to 8K Oh Happy days!