My first computer was a Vic 20. I bought it in Mississippi in December of 1981. I was in Air Force Tech School at Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi Mississippi. I wanted a computer because I had heard of people with the commodore and I was fascinated by computers. The Vic 20 had a cassette tape as a disk drive. I was able to create a maze game program and some other simple programs. Mid 1982 I was stated in San Angelo Texas and I received a copy of PC magazine and they were announcing the IBM PC. A real computer. So I sold my car and purchased an IBM PC with 64k of memory and 2 floppy drives. It hooked up to my TV. I learned the BASIC programming language that was built into the system and wrote a score keeping program for our dart team.
Eventually I was shipped to Fairbanks Alaska to Eielson Air Force Base. The squadron had received 175 Heath Kit computers to computerize the offices at the squadron. When I arrived, they were sitting in boxes in a store room. When the squadron commander found out I owned an IBM personal computer, he gave me the task of building them all, installing them all and holding training sessions on how to use them. It was an amazing learning experience and I became the computer expert in our squadron.
I kept my PC until I mustered out of the Air Force. Silicon Valley was just coming to life in California so I began going to computer swap meets and computer shows. I bought my first hard drive and began writing bigger programs in BASIC. Soon after my discharge, I got an interview at Seagate technology in Scotts Valley. I received the interview because someone who I had helped with a computer problem owed the person in Scotts Valley money from a poker debt. He sent me to this man as payment for his poker debt. During the interview, I asked the hiring manager what was one thing I needed to learn. He said, “Learn to program in C.” I drive from Scotts valley to Berkeley CA to a company called 1-800-software and I bought a Microsoft ‘C’ compiler and a book on how to write programs in ‘C’ and I went home and started writing programs in ‘C.’ My first day at Seagate I was tasked with writing some software and I did. My life as a paid computer programmer had begun.
I started writing software in 1981 for my Vic 20 and I stopped writing software in March of 2005 when I became a pastor. Through that time, my interest and love for technological things has grown as the industry has grown. Being a programmer I have always known how computers work and what software does. Personal computers changed the world and smart phones are changing it again. With the tenth anniversary of the iPhone being this year, we have come a long way since my vic 20
#Thoughts on technology#
Eventually I was shipped to Fairbanks Alaska to Eielson Air Force Base. The squadron had received 175 Heath Kit computers to computerize the offices at the squadron. When I arrived, they were sitting in boxes in a store room. When the squadron commander found out I owned an IBM personal computer, he gave me the task of building them all, installing them all and holding training sessions on how to use them. It was an amazing learning experience and I became the computer expert in our squadron.
I kept my PC until I mustered out of the Air Force. Silicon Valley was just coming to life in California so I began going to computer swap meets and computer shows. I bought my first hard drive and began writing bigger programs in BASIC. Soon after my discharge, I got an interview at Seagate technology in Scotts Valley. I received the interview because someone who I had helped with a computer problem owed the person in Scotts Valley money from a poker debt. He sent me to this man as payment for his poker debt. During the interview, I asked the hiring manager what was one thing I needed to learn. He said, “Learn to program in C.” I drive from Scotts valley to Berkeley CA to a company called 1-800-software and I bought a Microsoft ‘C’ compiler and a book on how to write programs in ‘C’ and I went home and started writing programs in ‘C.’ My first day at Seagate I was tasked with writing some software and I did. My life as a paid computer programmer had begun.
I started writing software in 1981 for my Vic 20 and I stopped writing software in March of 2005 when I became a pastor. Through that time, my interest and love for technological things has grown as the industry has grown. Being a programmer I have always known how computers work and what software does. Personal computers changed the world and smart phones are changing it again. With the tenth anniversary of the iPhone being this year, we have come a long way since my vic 20
#Thoughts on technology#
Comments
Post a Comment