Hi, to everyone at Stardot, I’m John

[john.bingham]

Computers were not available when I went to school, but when I started work, I was fascinated by the IBM mainframe they had. My exposure to it was to prepare requests and punch cards to run PERT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_e ... _technique planning simulations. You would submit them on a Thursday and if you were lucky and hadn’t made any mistakes you would get the resulting printout by the following Wednesday. As soon as I saw the Acorn Atom I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one. I saved up my meagre apprenticeship earnings and bought a kit. It was probably one of the best things I have ever bought. I learnt about electronics, soldering, how computers work and how to write programmes in Basic and Assembler. I loved the informative manual and all the magazines that were available back in the day. My immediate return was a distinction in my Computer Science lesson at college.

At work they were still on punch cards and because it was the MOD you weren’t even allowed to use electronic calculators (because they weren’t calibrated) so slide rules, mechanical calculators and nomograms were the tools of the trade. I obviously hid my Ti 58 under my desk and (for the sake of effect) enthusiastically used the 6-foot-long hand cranked slide rule when it was my turn. In later years I used DEC PDP-11 and then VAX9000 with unwieldy Tempest https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/tem ... c-security protected VT100 and Tektronix 4010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_4010 storage screen terminals.

I sold my Atom (D’oh!) to buy a BBC B and later after much use sold that also as computers in my workplace were streets ahead of what I could afford. I had left the MOD and was now using Sun Sparc stations and SGI workstations - wow what a computer revolution. I look back on those years fondly and regret selling my Atom and BBC computers.

So, to the present day and I like to collect those things I used in my youth, but perhaps didn’t appreciate as much as I should have, given what they have taught me!

[Multiwizard]

Hi John,

welcome to this great Forum...


Greetings from my little Dutch Atomic Attic, Wim...

[tricky]

Welcome, you are amongst friends now, but you might find Atoms have gone up!

[flaxcottage]

Welcome, John.

[Neil]

Welcome John!

Welcome to the club. The bar will be opening soon, I'll have a pint of Bodingtons Smooth!

[BeebMaster]

My God, it's Lord Lucan! Been hiding in an IBM mainframe since 1974, eh?

[john.bingham]

My God, it's Lord Lucan! Been hiding in an IBM mainframe since 1974, eh?

Damm I was hoping to remain at large.
You wont be surprised to know you are not the first to point out my appellation