What Was Your First Programming Language?

[Jim Horn]

Wow - memories!

1971: IITRAN, Illinois Institute of Technology's PL/1 & Algol mashup to replace the proprietary IBM code they had when they replaced their 360 with a Univac 1108. Aah, the days of 029 keypunches. Good old days? Are you *kidding*?!

Later: FORTRAN, 1108 Assembly, (1975) HP-25, HP-67 (1977) 6502 assembly, DEC Focal, Pittman Tiny BASIC, HP-41C (1980) Applesoft BASIC and Apple Integer BASIC, Randall Hyde's LISA (6502 assembler), UCSD Pascal, HP BASIC on 9335, 9845, 9826, 9836, 9846, etc. FIG Forth. Capricorn assembly (for HP-75C), 68000 Assembly (used in HP spectrum analyzer firmware).

(1985) Aztec C (Amiga 1000), Amiga BASIC. 8086 Assembly (for HP-110). Rockwell FORTH (in 6512, a 6502 variant used for the Engine Monitor System for the Rutan Voyager - another use of FORTH!). Archimedes C and 8096 assembly to write an Intel 8096 operating system for HP 50000 series instrument modules.

6809 assembly and ???C for the "Smart Radio Transceiver" used in the ARTS system to provide telephone service for Indonesia. Of course, RPL on the HP-48/49/50 series. C++ to keep current (still learning its nuances). Started to play with Java for Android use.

All of which is fun but as Steve Ciarcia said decades ago, my favorite programming language is solder - though FPGA programming (CUPL, ABEL, PHDL, AHDL, VHDL and Verilog) comes pretty close!