I still remember the mystery and curiosity that suddenly swirled through my head at a party about 1976 when someone mentioned that they were a programmer, and they worked with a computer. Time slowed down while I searched through my stammering thoughts to ask a question. Now, how can I phrase a question when I don't know what the words are all about, and also not to sound too naive. So, I asked the simplest thing I could boil down the fog into: Uh, um, so what do you do as a programmer? I mean, what exactly is that -- programming? Hey, I knew I had seen pictures in the media of big white boxes and lots of wires, and I had vaguely heard the word "programmer", but I was hoping I could get some real specifics. And here was a person who actually did the work!
It was a short exchange. A couple of questions; a couple of enigmatic answers. But, just enough detail was transmitted to make me realize it sounded fascinating. Really, and deeply, fascinating. Something I wanted to know more about. Something I filed away -- "if I ever get a chance to find out more, I'm certain I will be very interested".
During college, which had ended for me in 1971, we used to sit in groups at night out on the balconies or porches or up on the flat roofs and promise each other we would not "sell out" our principles. We would stay pure and teach, or stay pure and do social work. We would not "sell our souls down the river" into the compromised commercial world. No, no, that would not do. Oh, that would be just awful, selling out to "the almighty dollar". Well, soon I was married and soon there were children and soon I had to sell out. I went into wholesale sales. Well, teaching in the early seventies paid too little to stay pure, unless you were single. But, I promised myself I would remain above the fray and approach sales as if I was a teacher, and do it my own way. So, old college friends, I really didn't break my promise, do you think?
But, by 1980 I had enough of the exciting world of salesmanship (oops, salespersonship) with all the travelling and telephones and waiting rooms. And, wonder of wonders, there was a lot of talk and advertising about little computers for your desk! One was mentioned to be selling for just five hundred dollars. I had to see it. So I stopped in at Radio Shack and took a look. Asked the clerk if he had some sort of tutorial about how to make it do things, and he handed me the "Introduction to Programming the TRS-80" manual, or some such name. It was for the BASIC language. I drove down to Springfield, Illinois, and every night after a day of calling on customers, I spent an evening of reading that manual. Could not get enough of it. When I returned on Friday night, I went back to Radio Shack and handed back the manual. "Would you mind if I just sat here with the computer and tried a couple of things?", I asked. Go right ahead, he said.
It was when I first saw the words being displayed on the screen that I knew for sure -- this was for me. This is what I wanted to do. This is what I wanted to do all the time, for a living.
There may be a lot of other programmers that experienced a similar rush of excitement when they first realized the new power they discovered, but I wonder what it is like now, with computers all around, for the new programmers reaching their awareness. Do they still get the same level of amazement? I'd be happy to find out that they do.
The computer had 4K of memory. Not 4MB. 4KB. 4 kilobytes. 4096 bytes of memory. And no floppy disk. It came with a tape recorder. But I started creating programs for people. And businesses. I may have been one of the first to put calculus on the TRS-80 (in 1981), because a school psychologist friend asked me if I could save him the annual three week drudgery of calculating, on a hand calculator, the percentiles for 4000 children's test scores. Trying to get that balky tape recorder to reload all those scores back into memory was slow and frustrating. But, the program spit out the numbers in about 45 minutes, so my friend was stupendously delighted. Well, I guess I was too.
"I see the lights, I see the party lights, The red, and blue, and green..."
I don't remember much about that song "Party Lights", but it was at another party that I first heard about the Fox, but it was FoxBase not FoxPro. Another attendee found out that I programmed in BASIC and asked me if I had ever tried FoxBase. He needed someone to quote programming modifications in SBT for his accounting clients. I proposed that he give me access to the manual, and if I thought I could handle it I would try a small pilot program to see if I could "hack" it. (Wow, there's the old meaning of the word). Before long, I was programming mods for all kinds of businesses. And FoxBase flowered into FoxPro. Then I was the MIS Programmer for a bio-medical manufacturer. Eventually I turned towards contracting with the State of Nebraska (Hi, Jerry Kreps!), and now I am in Georgia on a contract with a leading aerospace and defense weapon firm......
Yes, it can be done. You can reach your dreams by persistently continuing to program. Just go to parties frequently!
