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I got my start in programming with type-in BASIC programs. Back in the 80’s, almost every computer had BASIC built-in, but almost no kid could afford games. Or even get them – the nearest store that sold software from me was over 30 miles away. Mail order took 2-3 weeks. On top of that – kids are notoriously broke. What I did have was a library, and plenty of time.

Enter Compute! magazine. After ravenously devouring all the programming books our small Carnegie library had, I branched into magazines. BYTE was too news oriented and didn’t have type-in programs; though reading about the technology was fun. When I found Compute! – I was hooked. I eventually checked out just about every single magazine they had a dozen times over. I remember digging in the downstairs old issue stacks in search of any I might not have seen. I spent whole weekend afternoons typing the programs in – and then even more hours debugging each line to figure out where I’d gone wrong.

Nate Anderson recently wrote an article about those early days of type-in programs. Even more fun is the comments section full of people sharing their similar experiences.

With the internet and instantly available content and content development tools – it makes me wonder how the next generation’s engineers will develop. How will the instantly available world of free software and tools shape them compared to our generation of type-in programmers?

Thankfully, all these wonderful magazine scans have been saved in the Compute! Magazine Archive on the Internet Archive. I even sat down and typed one in (well – heavily utilized OCR as well!). What a blast.