sharke
POKE 53280,x to change the border color
POKE 53281,x to change the background color

 
LOL Sharke, you sad old individual you 
 
I haven't peaked or poked anything for quite a few years now 

I still get the odd PEEK every now and then 

sharke
I still get the odd PEEK every now and then 

better than the other...
 
just sayin...

Beagle

sharke
I still get the odd PEEK every now and then 

better than the other...
 
just sayin...

I do SCRATCH myself quite a bit (oh dear...we're getting all the way back into Commodore PET territory here)

sharke

Beagle

sharke
I still get the odd PEEK every now and then 

better than the other...
 
just sayin...

I do SCRATCH myself quite a bit (oh dear...we're getting all the way back into Commodore PET territory here)

I don't remember SCRATCH... I did some "basic" programming (flange stress calculator) on my C64 and that ported straight onto the PET at work, so that was nice...

I started way back in '71 on an HP 2000 (we had a time share terminal at the school).  So, no monitor.  Just fan-fold paper that we would use four times (up and down both sides).
 
We had a 110 BAUD acoustic coupler that we had to put the phone into and then quickly hit the Line Feed and Return buttons alternatively until it connected.  We later found out that if we were to whistle into the phone during the acknowledgement tone at exactly 14k Hz, we could get it to sync up at 300 BAUD.  That was moving man!  We almost couldn't read the printout as fast as it was being generated!  Hehe...

craigb
I started way back in '71 on an HP 2000

I was eleven then...
 
I remember them acoustic couplers though... What a nightmare they were. I mean, they worked, but we were always fiddling around pushing and moving the telephone handset around every time the connection was lost.

I was eleven in '75 and started with computers in a very similar way, except ours was on a table in the corner of the room.  No acoustic couplers.
 
I think it was a DG Nova, or Nova 2, and every time it crashed (often) it had to be re-booted using a front panel switch sequence.  We had 3 tty terminals (that had built in paper tape punch/readers)   and...  a VDU!!!  OMG we used to fight over using the VDU..  I still have tinnitus from those tty's.

I never had to deal with paper tape, but I did use cards a few times.  The joke there was to rubber cement two card together near the end of the tray (and not from your own programming box of course!).  Then the reader would process just fine until it hit those glued cards - hehe...