Just for fun - How old were you when you started programming CNC machines?

[Smit]

For me probably 26 or so. I started as a manual machinist then moved to the CNC Mills when they first came out. A Monarch Cortland machine with a one line digital readout. Got ahold of a G code list and started writing programs for what I was seeing the machines do then compared the programs until I was able to make them match the program in the control. After a while I moved onto special projects and started writing programs that I could use. The engineers started mimicking my programs in their cam systems which made me feel pretty good.

I moved onto a new job eventually and manually programmed until they implemented a programming positon.I started using Mastercam with version 4 as I recall.

[JParis]

I took Machine Shop in high school....as I've touched on previously, didn't end up graduating but enlisted in the Army....after I got out, I embarked on a somewhat different path in janitorial & floor maintenance for a now defunct Department store chain....

In high school we learned how to code by hand in the "very early" 80's we wrote it out and then punched tapes for an old Cincinnati Cintamatic machine...

Got back into it in 1988, running, setting up and programming lathes by hand....I was 27 at that point. 

[CNCAppsJames]

I started learning CNC programming at the local Community College in either 1991 or 1992. So 21 or 22.

Like Crazy, I got my first taste of computer programming as a young lad. I think I was 9 or 10. On an Apple IIe. Learned LOGO 1st, BASIC 2nd in Jr. High. FANUC Custom MACRO B in the mid-90's, then dipped my toes in C++ in the late 90's.

[TSmcam]

In high school we learned how to code by hand in the "very early" 80's we wrote it out and then punched tapes for an old Cincinnati Cintamatic machine...

Cintamatics! Now that is a name I haven't heard in a long time. The very first NC machine I ever operated, or programmed.

I was 18 when I first operated those, and programmed them. Punching out tapes on an old Olevetti typewriter and tape punch. Migrated on to a Cinncinati 3H Horizontal and 5V vertical, doing the same thing. By 22 I was manually programming using pen, paper, trig and paper tape for two Okuma OSP2000L LSN lathes, and a OSP3000L LSN lathe. Then I operated and programmed a Okuma 5VA with a OSP5000M-G control. Then, at around 25-26 I was on to programming the new Fanuc controlled machines we were getting in the factory.

This is a great thread

[Jim at Gentex]

I graduated as a Vo-Tech Machine Shop student and worked in a few different shops after high school.
 
I remember the old punch-tape machines at one place I worked, but never programmed them.
I started as a manual machinist and got hired by my current employer to work in the Prototype Shop.

At that time, around 1992, they decided to buy 2 Fadal VMC 4020's (one 3-axis, and one with the A/B table) for the Prototype Shop to increase our capability.
:insert Fadal joke here:

I was around 30 at the time and took a class on Mastercam V2...yes, that's VERSION 2, not X2! 
Been programming, setting up, and operating CNC mills since then.

[champshire]

I was 16ish...maybe 15 and a half. My Junior year of high school, I started at vocational school. Took machine shop. You had to get all the manual machine projects done first before you could use the CNC machines. We had virtual gibbs for the programming and some Fadal mills and a Mazak quick turn lathe. It was a great foundation to build on.

[beej]

Went to trade school right out of highschool and the taught FAPT, there. Wow, I don't miss that! at 20 years old, I spent 3 months working in a tool crib and sweeping floors in a mold shop with the promise that I would move into a toolmaker apprenticeship. when they fired a guy in the CNC dept they moved me there programming on EZ-cam and Mastercam while running the machines as well. Eventually I took some other jobs where I programmed full time and worked in the office. I've programmed on FAPT, EZcam, Mastercam, Smartcam, UG, and Cimatron

[Jeff]

19. I hired in to a shop that had 3 other employees in late 1988. Had 3 manual lathes and 4 bridgeports,2 shapers, etc..
3 months later the boss bought a new Mori SL-35 and I was the one who was picked to learn it and run it.
Now that man is a multi-millionaire and has over 100 employees and that machine has been thru hell but is still going strong.

[MIL-TFP-41]

First controlled machine I got to play with was an NC lathe back in 1988/1989 at vo-tech school. Was a donated machine from the navy I believe. Even had the punch tape type writer...it was high tech enough that it was actually hooked to a computer so you could make your program, feed that to the punch tape maker, it would punch the tape, then you fed it to the lathe and hoped for the best. They also had a bridgeport with a Boss 3 control. That was actually CNC, but once again the only way for it to read a program was punch tape. Also at that school there was a Leadwell mill with an actual Fanuc controller.

First real job with CNC was 1990 in a mold shop with a Monarch lathe that had a Fanuc controller with FAPT turn. Also that shop had Hurco mills with the Ultimax twin screen controller. Between the FAPT & Ultimax there wasn't much need for any kind of CAM for most things. There was a seat of Smartcam for the stuff the ultimax couldn't quite handle.

Been using Mastercam since V4 I believe....

[Tim Johnson]

In 1986 I was given two 2 axis lathes to program due to our programmer was too busy with the machining centers. I had been running them since 1983 so other than getting into the habit of pounding the numbers on the calculator it was an easy start. In November 1988 I was officially the programmer for all the lathes. Another programmer before me who did the milling machines gave me two weeks training on the equipment before he and the sheetmetal programmer went to Minneapolis to learn new sheetmetal software. The very first day one of the engineers came in with a Rowland circle casting for our first spectrometer instrument and I had no clue on how to start this project. I went in to see my boss about the project and he told me how to start the process and just use my machining experience for designing the fixture. It took a month but it worked out well. Later on I found out that our Vise-president of manufacturing was in on the engineer sending the project after the other programmers left. He was always lecturing me about whatever was on his mind when I was on the floor and deciding to see if I was listening.

[gcode]

The first NC machine I ran was a Burgmiester Drilling machine
It has a 6 spindle turret that was controlled by electro mechanical switches and an NC  (paper tape)
controlled table.
Every time the table made a move the drilling head would punch a hole
Depths were controlled by mechanical limit switches.
All the NC moves were incremental and by the end of the file they had had up to zero
If they didn't the machine zero would shift by the error amount  every time you ran the program
If you had a .001 error, your zero would be off by .010 after running 10 parts
To make things even more exciting, all the electro mechanical stuff tended to overheat and the machine would
start dive bombing your parts on hot summer days.

[Tony35]

I was 19 in tech school for tool & die. Programming mills,lathes,wire EDM by hand.
Loading programs with 3.5 floppy.
Got to play around in Surfcam a little bit in tech school.
Real shop programming I was 21 on a Mazak quick turn.
I was 26 when I started programming my own parts with Mastercam V9.1

[Elmer Fudd]

Started in a wax injection mold shop in 1979. 18 years old. In the late eighties they got a computer (286) and Mastercam 3.1 and a couple Fadals. Didn't know shit about any of them. Neither did any body else. Sucked but I survived and soon I wondered how I got anything done on the old cross slide rotary table on a Bridgeport.

[Flycut]

I started working in this trade at the age of 16 and started programming CNC in the first year.
I came to realize that at the age of 10 I had already been introduced to a software called "Tortue" that had a few similarities to what we do now.
I wonder if I could get a hold of that program again and play with it for fun.

[Flycut]

Looks like it's come a long way since I last toyed with it.
http://geotortue.free.fr/