BASIC was the first language I did anything with. I was a co-op during college at this company that made 4 wheel drive systems and they were working on an electronically controlled transfer case.
I was given the task of importing raw data captured at the test track into very uninformative spreadsheets. I wrote macros to generate charts presenting all the different parameters. Also very uninformative.
I came up with a much better way to present the data using BASIC. I drew a picture of a car with 4 wheels. The front wheels turned and the rear wheels flashed when they lost traction. I had a bar graph showing for the engine and a transfer case that flashed when power shifted to the front end. You could vary the speed, run it in a loop and even run it backward.
With this you could actually see the wheels turning under power starting to break loose and system responding to correct it. Just one problem when they got it to the test track and looked at data immediately after a test instead of weeks later: The steering rack actually turns in the opposite direction that the wheels do, so the wheels turned in the wrong direction!
I was given the task of importing raw data captured at the test track into very uninformative spreadsheets. I wrote macros to generate charts presenting all the different parameters. Also very uninformative.
I came up with a much better way to present the data using BASIC. I drew a picture of a car with 4 wheels. The front wheels turned and the rear wheels flashed when they lost traction. I had a bar graph showing for the engine and a transfer case that flashed when power shifted to the front end. You could vary the speed, run it in a loop and even run it backward.
With this you could actually see the wheels turning under power starting to break loose and system responding to correct it. Just one problem when they got it to the test track and looked at data immediately after a test instead of weeks later: The steering rack actually turns in the opposite direction that the wheels do, so the wheels turned in the wrong direction!
Thanks, BASIC. good times :-)