On Jul 17, 2007, at 11:24 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> Dang ... someone beat me out for "doing it the longest". Not by much,
> though.

I also began programming on an IBM 650 (in 1958). Oh, the fond  
memories: the glow of vacuum tubes, SOAP II [*], clearing card jams  
from both ends of the reader/punch unit, the 25-millisecond latency  
of drum memory :)

By 1961, I had already moved to the IBM 1620, a great improvement  
over the 650. But my all-time favorite computer remains the DEC  
PDP-11 (the original, not the VAX-11).

Regards, Morton

[*] an ancient assembly language -- nothing to do with XML messaging.