The First Few Computers I Programmed — David A. Butterfield
1969: The Original Digicomp — plastic computer with programs specified by placement of white plastic tubes
It could add or count from zero to seven; clock cycled manually using white tab at far right
1973: Compucorp 025E Desktop 'Programmable Calculator' — full machine-language computer
While a high-school junior I wrote the program my school used to compute student Grade Point Averages
(Today I would know enough to warn them they should check mine by hand, but it didn't occur to me at the time)
1974: Univac 1108 Mainframe — COBOL, FORTRAN
Interactive database query; Graphing of experimental results
1975: DEC PDP-11/45 Minicomputer — PDP-11 assembly language, FORTRAN
Realtime graphics for a flight simulator; Floating-point format conversion from Xerox Sigma V; Device drivers
1976: Altair 8800 Personal Computer — 8080 assembly language, C
Owned and built by my college roommate Jim
1977: IBM 360/91 Mainframe — FORTRAN, Algol 68, PL/1, MIX, COBOL
UCLA campus mainframe (not the specific unit pictured here)
