I knew both machines and had a lot of time on a VAX. My first internet email address was on a VAX at Lansing Community College. In addition to the VAX 11/780, they acquired a microVAX and I wrote the technician's manual for that. I was teaching technical writing there and for a directed study in computer science, I wrote a graphics-based tutorial (in Fortran) that demonstrated three different sorting algorithms.

The first computer I learned on was a PDP 11 in 1981 or 1982.
It also had teletypes and punchtape.

The second computer I learned on (believe it or not) was a VAX in 1983 - 1984.

Exactly.

The Affordable Care Act is a nightmare. The blatant
misappropriation of funds for the implementation of the web site is unforgivable. I believe that a better web site could have been created and up and running with a group of high school hackers (term to refer to individuals who like to tinker with computers 'hardware and software'. The entire site consist of HTML, Java script and some PHP. They probably would have done the entire job for say a paid college tuition, promise of future employment and maybe
a decent set of wheels with a bonus of free health care for ten years. In all that should have saved Sebelius $598,000,000.00 +.
But hell, this administration is redistributing the wealth. Going from taxpayers to foreign cronies.
How great is that. Everyone who is living within the borders of the US is paying for this.
What I cannot wrap my feeble mind around is
"How is it that no one is filing Racketeering charges against this administration?"
What is RICO Law...
In order to make it easier to prosecute organized crime, in 1970 Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law (RICO). Under RICO, it is a federal crime to participate in or make money from racketeering (organized, illegal activity). The law permits both criminal prosecutions, which can result in imprisonment and forfeiture (government seizure) of ill-gotten gains; and civil lawsuits, in which those harmed financially by the illegal activity can sue the perpetrators for damages.

The federal law targets not only organized crime, such as the Mafia, but also otherwise legitimate businesses or associations engaged in criminal activity. Federal prosecutors have used RICO to reduce organized crime and to fight white-collar crime, fraud, and political corruption. RICO allows prosecutors to bring all of an organization’s different criminal acts together in a single prosecution.
Read more...http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal/rico-offenses.htm

I have to agree with BO this time. Probably one of the safest statements he has made.
Computers have been integrated in our everyday lives.
When I was a youngster a computer (a small one) would occupy an entire room. The floppy discs were tape reels 20 inches in diameter and the room had to be temperature controlled. All programming was done in 'machine language'. All 1's and 0's. You needed to be very knowledgeable in math. Writing was tedious, testing was mandatory and results were not always good. Finding errors sometimes took longer to find than rewriting the entire program. Newer assembly languages made writing testing and running code much easier. Still one needs a good math foundation.
I personally don't consider building a web page or site coding, but it is probably the simplest of any computer 'coding' that I can think of.
Still we will need more people in the field and there are many avenues to pursue. Not all of these are Science or Coding.
Giving BO a little credit. He did not pull a gaff like Al Gore who claimed to have invented the internet.

It’s the damn Federal Health Care website that makes this story so ripe for fodder. But I do agree with you. This video was actually part of a promotional campaign directed at middle-schoolers. It’s quite benign.

“... Firms owned by white males were not allowed to bid.”

Link, please.

Yeah, I read that somewhere. Is this second show? Lol.

I think the irony that Obama is promoting code after squandering millions of taxpayer money on a website built by amateurs is lost on Maph.

Have you heard of Cloward-Piven?
This is just another example of it.

Indeed.

Thank you, I'm here all week.

Maph, I can appreciate you wanting to defend your guy...no wait...what am I saying..no I cannot... anyway, what's with the love affair with bo? What is it you like about him exactly? Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but HE'S NOT YOUR FRIEND.

I love you Eud!

lol

"Maybe he'll die"....From your lips to GOD's ears!!!

Like he already is!!!

Obama gave this job to QSSI - a minority-owned firm. Firms owned by white males were not allowed to bid.

QSSI is the remnants of a company called American Management Systems (you can see this info on Wikipedia) which also ripped off the taxpayers for $90 million, producing gobbledegook code. AMS was also minority-owned, before they filed for bankruptcy and reformed into QSSI.

When I was working in Northern Virginia for the Pentagon, we had to help the contractors, all of them black, who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it came to programming.

Instead of utilizing us (the civilian government employees) who had degrees in computer science, we had to hire contractors, all minority, under Section 8-a. I once helped this high school dropout who posed in a job requiring a minimum of a university-degree as a computer scientist. I also repaired the crap code produced by another incompetent who was a psychologist posing as a computer professional.

One time a company owner bragged to me, "I got this contract, because I am Hispanic. If your country is so stupid to give it to me because I am not white, I will take it."

Hello, I am just saying an untrained computer programmer can cause harm, as an untrained surgeon can cause harm. But 0bama is not saying that we should learn a little brain surgery.