What's your computer and developing history?

General (non-technical) Off-Topic
#1

As an offshoot of the Work Area post, I saw this from TheRealTonyK :

I’ve been coding since I was 10 on the TRS-80 and Vic20 and all that did was score me a career as a developer (bor-ing). Corona has finally made it so I can continue the original adventure without coming home from VB/AS/C/C#, etc just to grind on ObjC all night.

So, I’ll start:

When I was in high school and was around 11-12yo they had a computer room with several Microbee computers, an Apple ][e and an Exidy Sorcerer.
I was instantly hooked and taught myself BASIC on the Microbee then Apple BASIC.
My parents bought me a Dick Smith VZ200 which had 4K RAM as standard. It ran a ‘hacked’ version of Microsoft BASIC taken from the TRS80.
I taught myself BASIC on there and also did some minor programming in Z80 Assembly.
Next, I bought a Commodore 64 and did some BASIC and 6502 Assembly on there.
Some time later, I got my first IBM compatible: A 386SX25 with a 128Mb MFM Hard Drive. HUGE!
I went through several upgrades through different 486s, Pentiums, etc and eventually gave up on Windows/IBM compats and bought the 13" MacBook Pro 2009 edition.
I’ve taught myself: PHP, SQL, C, Perl, Java, BASH, HTML and touched on a few others. I’ve not become an expert in any of them.
I came to Corona after many years of looking at alternatives for Cross-Platform Mobile Development and have never looked back :slight_smile: [import]uid: 10389 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 323713[/import]

#2

Ahhh the Commodore 64…good times…good memories :slight_smile: [import]uid: 21331 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 95417[/import]

#3

Yup, I started on the C64 too…which was tough for an 8-year-old with no manual and obviously no internet!

I managed to crash a text-based game called World Soccer League, got into the program listing and went from there. I’d also finish my work at school really quick so I could have a couple of hours on the BBC Micro…tried to do a slightly ambitious version of Pitstop, only got so far as a scrolling monochrome road :smiley:

Moved onto AMOS on the Amiga, but never really finished anything save for a horse-racing game.

Stupidly, I lost interest in coding when I studied computing at A-level - learning about bits, bytes, lists, stacks, it was all so boring, and I hated Pascal. I was also far more interested in my first girlfriend…

Didn’t really do any coding for 12-13 years until about 9 months ago when I downloaded NSBasic, an android SDK. I can’t remember how I came across Corona, but I was instantly hooked.

I’m not really making any money yet but who cares! [import]uid: 93133 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 95429[/import]

#4

I never coded anything until finding Corona in late 2010. Zilch.

Still, I used a Commodore 64 (that thing took FOREVER to load games) and I was a big fan of RPG Maker which, while not as nerdy as Corona, was still pretty neat for making games back in the day.

Peach :slight_smile: [import]uid: 52491 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 95656[/import]

#5

I started programming at 18 (now 26) when I first got a PSP and found out about making games for it with Lua. It didn’t come easy to me but it was fun, i always wanted to make my own games, but never knew how it was done until 18 unfortunately.

I made a few homebrew games, like zelda clones, a mario racing game, a 2d halo spin off. Then moved to C/C++. From there I vastly improved the lua interpreter that i previously used to make my games, I ported Wolf3d to the psp, improved a snes emulator for the psp, did some work on a nintendo 64 emulator for psp, made a mario sidescroller with a cross-platform level editor.

Then got an iPhone. I instantly wanted to make stuff for it, and after some googling I came across the Corona SDK.

I could have (and still can) develop in Objetive-C but Lua is such a nice language and it’s very quick to get your idea up and running that I only use Objective-C when it’s needed.

I know :

C - Pretty Fluent
C ++ - Same as above
Obj-C - Good, but a bit rusty
Lua - Excellent
Php - Bits and pieces
Html - Who doesn’t know it :stuck_out_tongue:
[import]uid: 84637 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 95667[/import]

#6

Some interesting stories there :slight_smile:

They have emulators for my old VZ200 and I host a site for them at:

http://vzalive.bluebilby.com/

:slight_smile: [import]uid: 10389 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96165[/import]

#7

1978 - between my Jr. and Sr. year in high school I took some college classes including an Intro to Stats class. We had to use one of the schools mini-computers on a lovely Decwriter 36 (keyboard and wide green and white striped paper for output).

1979 I headed off to college and my bestie had had TRS-80 level 2 and we spent ours typing the old Star Trek game in from some print out, saving it to Cassette tape. I started playing DecWar on a DEC-10 Mainframe and I decided I wanted to learn how to write games and taught myself BASIC and Macro 10 assembler (the DEC-10’s machine language). It wasn’t long after that I decided to major in computer hacking, er programming.

A school transfer and a couple of major changes later, I finish with a BBA in Computer Information Systems (couldn’t get past Calculus II).

My first job out of college was at a Community college. My VAX-11/780 was still in shrink wrap. My boss said. “Computerize the Campus”. A year later that job was complete, but it was a grant funded job and Baby 1 was on the way, so off to the city’s major university (a team in the final 4 btw, and I attended one of the other schools in the final 4) where I was an Academic Consultant turned Network Engineer. (I’m getting to a point with all of this). I managed the student employees too.

A few years later, one of my former student employees had hooked up with a guy who was putting together an online gaming company (and coined the term MMORPG!) My student employee hired me out of U of Hell and I spent the next 7 years working on games, but my skills had me focused on the server side of things, building the infrastructure and socket communications for the players to chat and be billed.

A lay off sent me into several years of being a full time Photographer, though I kept programming side jobs when I could get them. I went back into IT full time in 2005 at the company I now work for where my web and support developer has turned into Product training.

A little over a year ago I decided I needed to keep my skills sharp and I wanted to get into mobile and with my background in game programming, this seemed like a great way to start and I found and fell in love with Corona SDK

I have very strong PHP, MySQL, C, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Unix/Linux Fu. My Corona SDK/Lua fu is getting there.

And my computer PC progression went from the TRS-80 to an Atari 800 to an Apple IIe with a CPM card, then to an AT&T PC clone, and my home computers have been some flavor of Windows based or Linux based since with access to various Mac’s over the years too.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96181[/import]

#8

Wow all you people had so many experience in computers that I never heard of. Also so many years in programming well well that because you guys are much older than me. As for I just started coding 4 months ago with literally no coding background, knowledge nothing zero knowledge. In 4 months I became successful launching 4 apps from Corona. All coded by myself and help with the Corona Community.

I really like Lua. But My dream I don’t know if it’s possible to at least learn Objective C or Java something more that can handle a lot of stuff. Is it really necessary for me to learns those languages what do you guys think ? Is it worth it in the future?

Or should I just stick to Corona forever ? [import]uid: 17058 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96189[/import]

#9

Learning Objective C would be a good challenge for you and would frankly be a good marketable skill.

[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96196[/import]

#10

I would like to learn, but if someone taught it tome. @robmiracle do you think colleges teach objective c?

I find it easy if someone taught me objective c because if I would to learn it myself I would be asking like a billion questions [import]uid: 17058 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96198[/import]

#11

I would think that most colleges are now offering Objective C as one of their courses.

But learning Objective C isn’t enough. You have to also learn the Apple SDK’s (and there are a ton of them) and you have to learn how it all ties together to build an app. Being a C programmer and knowing enough Objective C I can get by with the language part. But its the whole how do you tie everything together? Do I put this bit in a delegate or in my controller code? I don’t know the relationships between all of that and there SDK has a billion options.

The good news is most colleges should have courses in app development that covers all of that, so you might need a couple of classes, learning C, Objective C and mobile development.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96300[/import]

#12

@robmiracle Well that I hope to hear, because I’m really looking for in entering to college, for them teaching those classes, I was thinking of attending MIT knowing that they might have it [import]uid: 17058 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96422[/import]

#13

@robmiracle I really love programming, if someone thought it to me I’m really fascinated if someone teaches it to me because i find it much easier than learning it myself as I said before. I actually try to learn Objective-C and I fail epic, not able to grasp not one single thing. While doing Lua I was able to create something [import]uid: 17058 topic_id: 23713 reply_id: 96423[/import]