When I first went to college (early 70's in Canada), from high school, they had vending machines dispensing punch cards for the students to program Fortran for their IBM 360. Much like more modern computer labs, there were labs of card punches and readers. You submitted your card stack and later picked it up the line printer output.
My first program was Tick-Tack-Toe written in FORTRAN. I still have that card deck somewhere. We went to the moon on FORTRAN.
One of my wife's high school friends was a programmer when we got married. After the hitching, as we got in the car to leave the church, he chucked a whole big box-full of chads from those punch cards into our car. Years later, when we sold the car, it was still blowing chads out of the ventilation system. Thread? What thread? I never learned Fortran. Started in BASIC. Did a little in C and C++. The vast majority was in ladder logic as an industrial technician. Ladder logic is seriously clever stuff. I really miss doing that stuff. For example: https://www.plcacademy.com/ladder-logic-tutorial/
FORTRAN. Punch cards. Computers the size of rooms. Yup, those were the good ol' days. I still have a pile of punch cards. they make good bookmarks or note pads - a long as you can write around the holes. When Radio Shack first started selling computers that ran basic, they would put one on display in the mall. I walked by one and entered: 10 Print "Error 49B" 20 Goto 10 Then I came back later and watched the salesman try to figure out what was wrong with the computer. I wish I had thought up error # ID-10-T back then...
I didn't go past Fortran in those days. It wasn't bad if you could create a logical if-then-else tree chart that made sense, then just add the commands. Nice engineering language. Only much later did I dabble in BASIC. I did some really serious DOS batch file programming to ease various tasks managing our networks. Most of my programs were need based to make repetitive management stuff easier. This really came in handy when Windows moved to its PowerShell and Bash shells just like Linux. I had to do a lot of scripting for our *NIX systems for similar management reasons. LOL, even the Wikipedia folks are not savvy enough to define those. Surrounded by children . . . .
I loaded a few ounces of confetti in the defroster duct of my buddy's van for his wedding. Also put in a jumper between the left turn signal and the horn relay.
I never officially learned computer programming beyond my high shool BASIC class. I'm glad I am just a mere user. I can blame on everyone below me. LOL
The ID10-T refers also to a class of contacts regularly investigated by newly qualified US Navy lookouts. The most commonly tracked of this type is the GU-11 variant....a very small, stealthy STOL/VSTOL airborne contact armed with an accurate but somewhat harmless biological weapon.......
