I think that I each of our lives we have a handful of moments that define us. Sometimes it's being in the right (or wrong) place at the right time, some times it's what life throws at us.
When I was very young, probably elementary school, on a few occasions I went to visit my grandfather when he was at work. He worked for South Central Bell, one of the AT&T regional operating companies. I don't remember much about why I was there, but I remember seeing all that STUFF. I remember the sounds, the lights, the hum of machinery. It's a vague memory now, but it fascinated me. I'm pretty sure that set me on a course toward technology, even if I didn't yet know it.
Second, Christmas 1978. My brother and I got a Magnavox Odyssey game console. Boy did we fight over that thing. We both wanted to play it all the time. I only remember two cartridges that we had. K.C. Munchkin, the Pac-Man knockoff, and Computer Programming. My brother played the game, I tried to understand the programming thing. I didn't. I read that dang manual probably (at least) 100 times. I could enter the code that was in the book and see things move on the screen, I could change colors and shapes, but I did NOT understand any of it. What did get way down into my brain though, was little pieces of HOW it worked. What the program flow was, and the thing I didn't really understand until MUCH much later, what assembler and machine language were. I learned binary math, which seemed completely useless.
Christmas Display - Birmingham
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