Welcome to the Machine

I thought I might give you a brief history of how I got into the IT world. If you don't care, suck it, this is my blog, dammit. Now, how can I do this without sounding like S&D?

When I was in eighth grade, 1977, they had this system for their math department. You take an assessment test on a punch card, give it to the tester, card feeder guy and the computer spit out a result and where you should start, i.e., basic math, fractions, polynomials, etc. You would get your book, complete the recommended work (not graded or required) and take the test at the end, on a punch card. If you passed, you proceeded to the next level. There were fifteen levels for that school year. I started about midway, I believe. I soon learned that, if you took a test, and didn't pass, you could simply take the test again, until you did pass... On to the next level. So, that's what I did. By Halloween, I had successfully passed all fifteen levels. This meant I had nothing else to do in Math for the remainder of the school year.

Welcome, my son, to the Machine...

The Math department had a terminal of sorts that consisted of a keyboard console, a punch card reader and a printer. No video. I was given some basic instructions and warnings and Voila! I was the new card feeder guy. It was better than cleaning erasers. I would take the cards from the students, who hadn't figured out the trick to the course, feed them through the reader, wait for the mainframe in Dallas to respond, then hand the student the printout with their score. Why did I enjoy this? I didn't, but after school, the uber math teacher, would allow the disciples to play games!
Soon, we were learning BASIC. This still wasn't something I'd considered doing for a living. Who the hell wants to sit behind a keyboard all day?

Fast forward to 1981. My best friend was given an IBM PC from his father. It had something new, Video! We spent hours on that thing. All DOS, all command line. We wrote BASIC programs that told a story, I know, not fun, but wait! My twisted personality raises it's head. The program prompted the user for different words, like "Enter a Proper Name: " or "Enter a verb: ". Then at the end, it would display the story with the words you provided, strategically placed in various parts of the story. It was a legitimate, wholesome, clean story... Unless you used words that made it into something, a young geek in-training, would snicker or ROTFLOL about.
We played with that PC and it's siblings for several years. Then I went off to the Army and got away from it.

In 1987, I was sent to Germany for a three year tour. I worked in a medical clinic on post and they had a Zenith 286 PC on a Novell network. As it used to be with most small organizations, if you know anything about computers, guess what your new added responsibility is? I spent more time on that PC, than I did at home. I learned Clipper, version Summer '86, it's a dBase III+ compiler. I wrote a patient tracking system that the Medical command in Europe adopted later. But it was my first exposure to Novell. And it was a sweet concept. File and print? From a network without a Mainframe involved? No way... Yes, way. The next year I bought my first PC. It was popular to pass around the latest Computer Shopper magazine and drool over the many mail order PC companies that had all the latest specials. I chose one. Tussey Computer Products, out of Hersey, PA. I ordered an PC XT Compatible with an 8088 10Mhz processor, 640k of RAM, 20 MB hard drive and an 14" EGA monitor. Total cost... $1500.00 Yes, Fifteen Hundred Dollars. And when it first arrived, my hands were shaking as I assembled it and turned it on. Within, 4 months, I had lost 25 pounds. I chose the PC over everything. Food, sleep, they were optional. The addiction was deep.

I began to want to make the Machine do what I wanted it to do. I taught myself 8086 Assembly language with the help of Peter Norton's Guide to Assembly Language on the PC. I wrote routines that would speed up my Clipper program's video. With ASM, I could talk almost directly with the Machine. Next, I learned C, and loved it because I could write slick software with one third the lines of code as ASM.

Soon, in 1990, it was time for my re-enlistment in the Army. I wanted to change careers from Medical to Programming. But, because I was considered a Career Soldier, no changes were allowed. I decided to re-enlist for 2 more years and then try this programming thing as a career...

The Machine had won.

That was 18 years ago and I am still smitten with ones and zeros. It has always been fun. I have never had a "job" that I "worked". I have never been in Management or desire to be. I still love to "play with the toys" and that's why I have never "climbed the latter", as they teach you in college.

When people ask me if I love what I do, I tell them, "If I won the lottery, I would be back tomorrow."