Just a bit younger here 
my first “computer interface” was an IBM 026 card puncher (the “advanced” 029 was reserved for graduating students, the paper tape punchers out of reach 
).
Then while working on my grad thesis I used a Texas Instrument SR-56 for circuit and Smith Chart calculations: its 99 programmable steps were just enough for the job at hand (after extensive optimization, no bloatware at the time).
Then on my first job I had access to a fantastic HP 85B, possibly the best machine built around a 6502.
I could do “circuit simulations” (well, sort of) programmed in Basic and with transfer functions etc. graphically shown on the tiny monitor and printed to the integral thermal printer (I may still have some of those printouts in the basement HAHA).
The 85B had also optional interfaces to control lab instruments (HPIB, now IEEE-488) and I really enjoyed playing with those rigs (and they were paying me for that too ).
I am only 54, so just a kid in the Linuxworld.
But I had the most fun reading this thread.
I can’t imagine how much knowledge there is between all of you " elderly" computer users.
The software you all wrote, the technology that started with the size of a house, and now it is the size of a smartphone.
Respect…
And you might be amazed at how much we have forgotten
Well, no. It was built around a custom chip dubbed Capricorn.
Same here! 
Just a youngster of 55. Too old for any “youngest” award and far off the title of this thread. Although, I do understand some of the sentiments, having got my first “home” computer in 1984 at the age of 14. It was an Atari 600 XL (with RAM extension) which shared the 6502 CPU with the Apple II* and the C64 - and it already had got a separate graphics processor. I was always so proud it was faster than the C64. But - as proven so many times - faster (in my then opinion “better”) isn’t equal to “more successful”. It was a pain getting any software. 
I learned my share of “coding” back then, first by trial and error with a few given lines of Basic, later by a book I bought.
My first Linux was SUSE Linux Professional 7.0. I didn’t have a clue what to do, back then. A HDD disaster threw me off the path for some more time. From 10.0 on (now open)SUSE became my only OS, aside from company driven requirements for Redmont.
Just as @jansteen, I am very much enjoying your stories and experiences. Thank you all!
I was very fortunate in starting with Linux in 1992. Early in 1992 I was reading comp.unix.msdos scouting for opportunities to make my 386 PC more like a real machine. Allan Adler had posted request for source for Unix for a 386. At the time I thought this was a pretty naive request. I was surprised to see this response from Kimmo Hakkarainen:
Newsgroups: comp.unix.msdos
Subject: Re: Public domain unix for PC's ?
Message-ID: <H108373.92Jan8144439@naakka.cs.tut.fi>
From: h108373@cs.tut.fi (Hakkarainen Kimmo)
Date: 8 Jan 92 12:44:39 GMT
Sender: usenet@funet.fi (#Kotilo NEWS system )
References: <ARA.92Jan7231737@schwyz.ai.mit.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland.
In-Reply-To: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu's message of 8 Jan 92 04: 17:37 GMT
Nntp-Posting-Host: naakka.cs.tut.fi
Lines: 78
ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
> Is there one ? If so, where can I get it ?
~ lehtori>finger torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi
[kruuna.helsinki.fi]
Login name: torvalds In real life: Linus Benedict Torvalds
Directory: /home/kruuna/tkol/torvalds Shell: /bin/tcsh
Last login Wed Jan 8 09:47 on ttyp4 from LKS500
New mail received Wed Jan 8 12:25:56 1992;
unread since Wed Jan 8 07:55:00 1992
Plan:
Free UNIX for the 386 - coming 4QR 91 or 1QR 92.
The current version of linux is 0.11 - it has most things a unix kernel
needs, and will probably be released as 1.0 as soon as it gets a little
more testing, and we can get a init/login going. Currently you get
dumped into a shell as root upon bootup.
Linux can be gotten by anonymous ftp from 'nic.funet.fi' (128.214.6.100)
in the directory '/pub/OS/Linux'. The same directory also contains some
binary files to run under Linux. Currently gcc, bash, update, uemacs,
tar, make and fileutils. Several people have gotten a running system,
but it's still a hackers kernel.
Linux still requires a AT-compatible disk to be useful: people are
working on a SCSI-driver, but I don't know when it will be ready.
There are now a couple of other sites containing linux, as people have
had difficulties with connecting to nic. The sites are:
Tupac-Amaru.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (137.226.112.31):
directory /pub/msdos/replace
tsx-11.mit.edu (18.172.1.2):
directory /pub/linux
There is also a mailing list set up 'Linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi'.
To join, mail a request to 'Linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi'.
It's no use mailing me: I have no actual contact with the mailing-list
(other than being on it, naturally).
Mail me for more info:
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.Helsinki.FI)
0.11 has these new things:
- demand loading
- code/data sharing between unrelated processes
- much better floppy drivers (they actually work once in a while)
- bug-corrections
- support for Hercules/MDA/CGA/EGA/VGA
- the console also beeps (WoW! Wonder-kernel :-)
- mkfs/fsck/fdisk
- US/German/French/Finnish keyboards
- settable line-speeds for com1/2
Still lacking:
- init/login
- rename system call
- named pipes
- symbolic links
0.12 will probably be out in January (15th or so), and will have:
- POSIX job control (by tytso)
- VM (paging to disk)
- Minor corrections
~ lehtori>exit
script done on Wed Jan 8 14:39:15 1992
I hope this is answer to your question !
Kimmo
--
Kimmo Hakkarainen (h108373@cc.tut.fi)
Fire, walk with me.
I ftp’ed version 0.11 on January 23rd 1992 on to a machine at Wellington City Council where I was contracting at the time. I used rawrite to write a boot floppy and a root file system floppy. After this I booted it on one of WCC’s 386 PC’s. Linux booted and asked for the root floppy. A getty for Linux did not yet exist, so there wasn’t any login-password interaction, after booting I was dropped straight into a root shell (GNU bash). Commands such as ls, cd, and ps, worked like the real thing.
I felt like I was witnessing a moon landing.
Way back, there were people called scientific programmers working with research engineer/scientists. These people would work on discretization of equations developed by the engineers, selection/development of numerical solution techniques, and efficient programming. There were always memory problems to getting a solution to any elaborate set of equations. The fortran equivalence statement wherein variables could share memory locations made many things possible with the limited hardware. There were no computer science majors. These people were most often mathematically oriented engineers themselves.
In those days the equations to be solved were new, the solution techniques were being formulated and written, and the hardware was newly evolving. These were all happening simultaneously with each other. Made for exciting times.
Are scientific programmers around now?
Back then, I was a kid, T.V. was a precious item in the living room, unfortunately we are one of the unlucky people that can’t afford it. We have a radio with 24 AA batteries. We listened to the live radio broadcast the fight between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay (later changed his name to Muhammad Ali) 
In 1969 staff of “Regionales Rechenzentrum Stuttgart” was head James Clayton Almond, 3 engineers and a programmer. It has grown substantially: HLRS High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart: People.
Knowledge peaked at age 25. It’s declining for 51 years. Experience has increased over the same period and will continue to increase.
Cannot agree in general. While maybe the rate at which you acquire new knowledge peaks about that mark, a peaking total knowledge means that you are forgetting more things than you are learning anew; at least in science or technology nobody would be able to keep a job if one stopped studying or otherwise learning just out of school and I assume that applies to most people reading (and writing) here.
That might be true for a fair share of the general population though.
I suspect that, Karl is mentioning the statistic propagated by the scientific community that, freshly baked recipients of a PhD tend to be the people who submit volumes of findings of newly discovered items which their research uncovered …
- From this observation, it’s commonly accepted that, as far as basic research is concerned, most of the new discoveries have been found by younger researchers …
OK, fair, but then we should admit that “people making new discoveries in basic research” is a fairly tiny share of the general population (and of Forums subscribers as well? )
Studies of achievement show two peaks, one in the thirties and one in the fifties; the former tend to have more scientists, the latter more historians and philosophers. Some people display two peaks. Also, if you remain intellectually active, your measured IQ continues to increase into your 80s at least. But to benefit most your perspective needs to broaden throughout your life. Age is no barrier to intellectual growth or achievement - only stopping intellectual exercise.