User:Richlove
| My Favorite Languages | |
| Language | Proficiency |
| FutureBasic | Proficient |
I graduated from the University of Alaska in 1973, with a degree in Electronics. My career has included positions as senior programmer, technical writer, and electronics service engineer with Stanford Research Institute, CX Corporation, Microdata, and McDonnell Douglas Corporation.
In 1972, I learned to write my first program on an old Athena computer that was donated to the University of Alaska. It filled a huge room and ran on many modules in sealed metal cans. These rectangular cans were about 4 inches by 2 inches and had a handle on the outside and plugged into a socket. That way you could replace any defective modules. The modules contained transistors, resistors, capacitors etc. (the same stuff we were soldering together in class to build our flip-flops, shift registers etc). The computer had no display or printer. The only way to program it was to push buttons on a very large console. The console was about five-feet wide. You would enter your program as binary numbers one line at a time and then push the run button and watch the lights blink to see if you programmed it correctly.
I wrote my first real program in 1974 while working for Stanford Research Institute. The language was Fortran and the program tracked azimuth and elevation changes for a radar antenna.
I have written programs in AppleScript, DEC assembly language, Fortran, FutureBasic, HTML, Objective-C, PHP, PICK Basic, JavaScript, QuickBasic, Swift and ZBasic.
When Apple released the Apple II , I was hooked on Apple products and started programming in BASIC on the Apple II. Purchased my first Mac in 1986 and have been an Apple Developer ever since.
I attended most of the MacWorld conferences at the Moscone center in San Francisco and later in Boston and New York. Always loved Steve Jobs "One More Thing" keynotes.
This is a story I wrote back in 2008 about my experience with electronics and programming:
Electronics and Programming History
In 1989 by I founded Carnation Software, a family owned company that develops and sells Macintosh software and services, specializing in MacWise terminal emulation, utility programs TM Error Logger and Sayit Mailit for iPhone.
Located in the rural community of Driftwood, Texas, Carnation Software takes pride in being highly responsive to customer needs and fast-changing technology. With customers across the U.S. as well as worldwide, the Carnation founders were early proponents of Internet use for sales and service, offering customers convenient options to order products as well as receive prompt, personal service. More than 40,000 people enjoy using Carnation Software's products.
I am a regular contributor to the FutureBasic programmers users group mail list. You can download a freeware copy of the FutureBasic IDE for macOS X 10.13 and newer, along with detailed installation instructions, programming examples and other information at: