Winter Camp Future Society / Reference / Legends / Winter Camp Legends
Winter Camp Legends
Ass Adtiser and first computer program
| Origin | Winter Camp II (1978) |
| The Story | Before Winter Camp II, Mike Osvath had received a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. He, Jeff Rand, and Steve Donohue were all eager to learn to develop applications in BASIC. One of the first they created for Winter Camp was a roster program for Winter Camp II. In addition to the expected name, address, phone, and birthdate, this program included their chapter position like Chief, Treasurer, etc. For some reason, it insisted on Doug Wilson being labeled the Ass Adtiser. The code was edited and saved several times and not6hing every changed, according the computer, Doug was the Ass Adtiser. Back then, making changes to your program and saving them entailed recording the program to a standard cassette tape which would then be played to load the program. It was not foolproof and, depending on the length of the program, it could take a long time to csave and then cload a program. Despite several attempt to save it, nothing worked. Mike finally consulted a computer repair shop and they gave him a simple test to try; when his computer failed, it was diagnosed as a memory error and ater replacing the defective chip, Doug was once again that Ass Adviser. |
| Veracity | This story is all true. It should be noted that it was Jeff who insisted the abbreviation for Associate be Ass. |
| Trigger | This story is most often told to illustrate the difficulty of early computers compared to their more modern counterparts. Sometimes it is used to bemoan the fact that modern users have no idea how to write their own code. |
| Negative Message | You kids should get off my computer's lawn. |
| Teller | Most often, this one is told by Jeff. |
Last updated by Steve D. on 2021-08-21 09:59:17.
