qbasic will always have a special place in my heart. That was my first programming language. We made a hangman program…I know this doesn’t add to the discussion sorry.
BASIC is a fantastic language, and was my first programming exposure. 
10 PRINT “HOME”
20 PRINT “SWEET”
30 GOTO 10
lol I was just talking about QBASIC today and using GOSUB routines. And I remember drawing a “vector” line drawing in MS Paint, writing down all the x and y coordinates, entering them as DATA arrays, then using a loop to GET each coordinate to draw with the LINE() command. I spent way too much time on that, and I’m sure that floppy disc is long gone.
The more I think about this, the more it disappoints me… I must have missed the discussion about getting rid of the Vintage Computers… How sad! 
Seriously… Vintage Computers are Very Relevant History in Our Maker Community!
Not to mention all the computer programming classes that @denzuko has been working on. And now to learn that he was working on STEM backing and program!
Like I said in my previous reply, STEM pretty much sums up the type of Educational foundation that we want to focus on… The news that it may be getting pushed out truly makes me sad… What a loss to the potential that a STEM program can bring to Our Community!
I hope that others who enjoy the vintage computers, the availability of the computer programming classes that @denzuko offers, and the potential of having a true STEM program at Our 'Space will speak up as well! 
I have fond memories of hacking in BASIC, but I wouldn’t go that far.
As is the case for many of us and we were not “ruined.”
You mean STEAM not STEM don’t you? (A =Arts unless you think CA, Jewelry, Fired Arts, etc aren’t part of DMS anymore.) the A’s await your answer.
I meant STEM, but STEAM works for us as well!
My response and choice of wording/acronym was based off of what @denzuko stated that he has been working on…
Both STEM, and STEAM, are great programs, and anything working towards either here at the 'Space would be most awesome for our Maker Community!!
that’s irony, I had that same program too, think it was my third program i ever had. My even have a copy of the pc magazine which published it too.
How funny! The one I created was actually one of the few that I created myself (without typing code in the magazines we would get…). Most of the time, we (my younger brother and I) would just type out what was in the magazines in the early days because the end result was more complex than the really simple things that we had taught ourselves to code on our own… I was so proud of coming up with such a “fancy” program! Hahaha (It’s probably a good thing I didn’t come across the same thing in the magazine, as I’m sure it was probably much more robust than my simple one… Hehe 
)
There was never any discussion behind it just select individuals deciding that their stuff was better suited to fit on those shelves instead.
I’ll be glad to; growing up I had only a trs-80 and c64 but had the luck of being able to visit the community college’s computer lab to learn hands on from the volunteers for the lab as part of my home schooling. A lot of the stuff I learnt was networking, operating systems, programming and just computers as a whole. I later started my own bbs and tech firm. The experience I gained from learning hands on about the whole computer from hardware to software had a lasting experience in my life and its one that I want to pass on to the newest generation of "hackers’, makers, and generally anyone interested in computers.
To achieve this goal I have been working on setting up the interactive computer museum so people can actually experience key systems first hand that has lead to where we have gotten to with the internet and modern computing. This is phase one, phase two is offering programming and networking courses which I can then take both of these offerings and present them before the Afterschool alliance, Home U.S. Department of Education, and Texas Board of Education to turn the program into an official STEM pilot program.
Phase one has been well underway with much of the “bulk” systems virtualized and emulated off aws servers and a few functional “display” units available for use with all available programming systems and software needed for connecting into the publix unix system and/or xm core bbs.
Other areas of phase one:
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working with archive.org, sdf.org, jason scott of textfiles.com, several FIDOnet bbs, and the computer history museum to name a few to help with archiving of historical software, rare industry materials (ie schematics, internal manual, etc.), commercial literature, and educational material in a digital format via an online library to preserve a piece of engineering and IT history before the “grey beards” knowledge becomes completely lost to us.
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providing Coding Challeges related to systems of the era.
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work with several of our older members whom were apart of the pre-aol days, and with noted exceptions post-aol days, to provide a video record of computers and internetworking through recorded interviews.
As for Phase Two, that takes a lot of prep, paperwork, legwork, and in most cases requires the program in question to be prior established for over a year with an on going attendance. Which also requires a dedicated committee or support form several members at the space.
Both of which I would like to see happen.
As for the initial funding that would have been garnered through the program that in of itself would have been funneled back to DMS as this program is in whole about supporting the dallas makerspace and it is in educating the general public.
Nope STEM until VCC posts some classes on game development then its STEAM. (pun intended)
Also to note, and in the spirit of transparency.
I have been looking into using JanusVR to build a virtual computer history museum which would have rooms modelled after DRI, Xerox Parc, and a few other notable offices/factories where individuals can work with the virtualized versions of the more famous computers in the same setting as the place of their birth and conception.
Other uses for the virtualized version of the museum are for Augmented Reality, holographics, and content delivery of the pre recorded interviews and other multimedia material.
However this is in addition to the few physical units on rotated availability.
You should add an agenda item on next board meeting to become a committee and be given the floorspace of one shelving unit in the common room (roughly 4 feet x 1.5 feet)
I like that idea. And given that the classroom committee has already provided said shelf previously this is the same space we plan on using.
As for becoming a committee we already have a proposal up https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Vintage_Computer_Committee and are open for members to join.
https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine
https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing
https://archive.org/details/80-microcomputing-magazine
https://archive.org/details/compute-magazine
https://archive.org/details/kilobaudmagazine
Ah the days of typing in DATA statements for hours and hours on a small keyboard only to get finished and have the damn thing not run. LOL
…or it runs the few times you do not get a cassette load error…
My first floppy disk was 70K and it was heaven.