Professionally, PL/1 late 70's
Educationally, BASIC on a PDP-something using a teletype terminal in the mid-70's.

The teletype was one of the few terminals that actually did something with an control codes SI (0x0f) and SO (0x0e). The entire carriage would drop allowing upper case characters to be printed. The SI and SO codes were also emitted when the keyboard's SHIFT key was pressed / released. This was before ASCII had become prevalent. To get the double quote, one had to send SI, 2, SO, since that symbol was on the keyboard as a shift-2.

1. Fortran IV, Fortran 77
2. RPG (IBM System 3 version)
3. BAL (IBM 1130)
4. COBOL
5. UniAPT - United Computing version of APT - Automatic Programmed Tools. #D graphics language for generating geometry for NC and CNC tools.
6. BAL for General Automation automation series computers SPC-16
7. PEP - Parametric Element Processor - 3D Graphics language for generating 3D geometry on ComputerVision 3D CAD/CAM graphics systems.
8. PL/1
9. C, C+
10. BASIC multiple versions, from Ohio Scientific, TRS-80, QuickBASIC for Mac and Windows, Visual BASIC.
11. Forth
12. LISP
13. Python
14. Miscellaneous scripting languages for Windows, Unix, MacOS.

Well!
Back in 1955, attempts were made to provide assemblers and compilers, but they all provided inefficient machine code - so we mainly wrote directly in machine code, since it was important to have fast (TeeHee!) programs. I recollect starting a run and going out to the pub while it was running to return only to find it crashed minutes after leaving and creating another all-night sitting. My neighbour used to call out "dirty stopout" as he set off to work. If only!
Bill Bailey

To be honest, I am surprised by the number of OG programmers around here. I consider myself "old-school" for having started on DOS. Heh.



What an awesome forum!

COBOL on IBM 7094 at Vandenberg AFB, 1962 or 1963.

My dad, an engineer on the Titan programs, brought home a stack of manuals, and I read through them all. He let me write a simple COBOL program that he took to work. It ran! All it did was some basic +-x/ math, but I was really proud of myself.

Sadly, most of the programmers of my era are now dead. Gosh!
Bill Bailey

And here I thought I was an old timer... My first exposure to computing was in 1974.

I am pleasantly surprised at the number of folks here that date back to pre-"software engineer" times. I believe that term was first coined when they were working on the guidance computer (which was wire wrapped) for the Apollo missions - circa 1964? 1965? The acceptance test was to fly a B-29 from the east coast to the west coast, relying only on the flight guidance computer (today called an INS).

And you're right... This IS a great forum.

Coded on teletype and had the paper tape loaded to reveal next week on the course that I had an infinite loop. Memory was 4K magnetic core, later increased to 8k. I might still have the manual, The size of a large wardrobe it could do almost every thing a handheld TI would do a few years later but with a nice printed output. The manual would be in the heap with the 8 inch floppy disks I kept as mementoes of my first real attempts some years later, having moved on to CPM about 1982, when I was getting paid to do it.

Fortran, 1981 WVU

At NC State I think most if not all freshmen in sciences or engineering had to take Fortran. That would would greatly enlarge the pool. Now I wonder how many here had Fortran 101 as a prerequisite vs those who had to learn it for a job.

I wish to vote Fortran

My first flirtation using a computer to program was with the Radio Shack "Color Computer", so I guess Basic would be the language. Spent many a happy hour that way. Eventually I went to NYU and took the courses required to get a diploma. My fave was Assembly. My prof had me sub a few of his classes for him. What an ego boost that was.

Fortran. Back in 1968, I took a 3-hour undergraduate course entitled: Numerical Methods and Fortran Programming. Despite having two degrees in Physics, when I was applying for a job that course caught the eye of the person at McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) reviewing my transcript and I believe I was hired based mainly on that one course. This was before there was such a thing as "computer scientists". I hardly ever used my physics degrees and remained employed there for 40 years! I became acquainted with Unix and eventually Linux starting in the early 1990's.

John Lonigro

Oh, that's easy. TI Extended BASIC

I have the manual for it right here. I was 14 and it was 1979.

My fist programming language was PL/1