early PC

[Ralph Gonzalez <rgonzale@ibl.bm>]

I'm trying to get a handle on the timeline -- I guess Delta
started admitting HS students around '72? I was at
Newark High School and we had a 4KByte and an 8KByte
Wang micro with CRT display and Basic interpreter. I
still remember deleting comments and as much white space,
LFs, etc as possible to write a decent graphics game in about
2 pages of code.

This was 1976, plus or minus one year.
At that time I was coveting one of the many DIY home
computer kits which were coming out. Before I could blow
my money on one, Phil Bernosky hooked me up with Delta,
where I could use a much nicer machine and the Tektronix
storage tube display for graphics (not so good for games
because you couldn't do selective erase, but VERY
high resolution, even for today -- probably about 150
dpi addressable, and truly smooth lines inbetween).
It wasn't until around 1985 that I bought my first
computer, a Mac Plus.

Somehow I wasn't supervised much at Delta. I just wrote
numerous graphics games and some wireframe 3D stuff and
even dabbled with homegrown AI. No database assignments
or anything like that, no coding standards -- I wrote
horrible, terrible spaghetti code, probably thanks to
starting out on that 4K Wang machine. Anyone else go 
through Delta like this?

I went on to use C in grad school and learned a bit of
discipline.

Hey, if I can find my old source listings, I'll throw
together a Basic+/Tektronix - to - Perl/Tk translator
this Summer...
-- 
Ralph Gonzalez
rgonzale@ibl.bm