[vrossi]

Hi, I am new in this forum, but I have been experimenting Virtual humans for some time. In the past months I had built my Virtual Assistant using AIML database, ProgramD Interpreter, Haptek character, an HTML interface and some Javascript functions.

A few days ago I saw Hal and I decided to throw away all the work I had done  , because I saw that it's a much better basis on which one can build a Virtual Assistant.

My job is as an IT consultant. I wrote my first program in FORTRAN in 1975 on a computer using punched cards (is there anybody old enough to remember them?), so you can have an idea of how really old I am, but I still love to stay up all night working on these subjects.

I hope to give some useful contribution to this forum.

Bye

[Freddy]

Hail to thee, Ancient Programmer of Ye Punched Card!

Welcome, well you're not alone in the world of AI as it appears it has a wide selection of all ages. I got started more or less at the beginning of the BBS days, pre all of this basically!? I do remember seeing a punched card in a college lesson once, it was shown to us with some reverence and then never seen again...and we even had a mainframe that took up the best part of the class room at our college - great in the winter for keeping things warm  :smiley

Anyway, age and experience is underated far too much sometimes, so I welcome you and your knowledge to the forum, only hope I can keep up with the methodolgy!? There's quite a lot of information gathered here and interesting discussion, so feel free to examine, experiment and comment on whatever you find.


Freddy.

[FuzzieDice]

We need a "welcome" smiley.? ? :zdg_hello

Anyway, welcome to the forum! Fortran? Punchcards? Well, I have a friend in her 50s that had used them in college. I personally didn't get started in computers until the early 80s, using a DEC Rainbow Telewriter hooked up by 300 baud accoustical modem to a mainfraime miles away. I wasn't really supposed to be on the computer but the Jr. High librarian let me use it one grade early. I never could get it to do much though.?

I remember in computer class in high school (they used Apple ]['s and Bell & Howel Apple clones) and getting laughed out of the class almost as the teacher tried to tell everyone computers can not think. I had just read a book on Artificial Intelligence that I had got at Radio Shack back then (I'm sure some of you may have seen the title?) and was pretty convinced computers COULD think. In fact, IIRC, the book even said so. They stopped laughing however, when I had correctly diagnosed a computer problem (bad display chip) and the teacher that dissed me on it later got in front of the class and told everyone I was right after they got the repaired machine back. The stares I got were priceless.?  :smiley

It was back then I started by typing in the ELIZA program into my parents' TRS-80 Model III (had a cassette tape deck, no disk drives, and? a whopping 16K or RAM and cost over $1,000). It was in one of the books they bought with the computer. I spent HOURS on the computer (still I never changed?  :grin ) and I would even rewrite a lot of the programs to be smaller and have more features. ELIZA was one I was particularly fascinated with. When I got my own computers, I would experiment off and on with AI but got sidetracked with graphics and then web design. Now I work as a web developer/tech writer. But my hobbies include Artificial Intelligence and I'm amazed at how far it has come and how well come of the chatbots can emulate a seemingly intelligent conversation.

Anyway, forgive my rambling. But when you went as far back as Fortran and Punch Cards (have you ever done Cobol or Pascal? Have you ever taken the "Hacker Test"? ) it all made me think back to my first days of computing. :smiley