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If I can remember back that far ... I believe my first computer was actually the one belonging to the Philadelphia School District, which my high school (Wissahickon) time-shared ... As sad as it may seem today, I spent HOURS entranced by the thing ... playing "Hunt the Wumpus" (for which I continue to have a warped nostalgic fondness) ... then Star Trek ... and, after my high school switched to the West Chester University dialup ... Adventure! Then came the TRS-80 ... and yes, I remember loading programs from several arcane media ... paper tape, hollerith cards (and yes, I have dropped a stack), cassette tape ... and eventually even reel-to-reel mag tape. First computer I conquered and consider my own? Xerox Sigma-IX, with the ever popular CP-V OS ... WCU's mainframe in the early '80s ... late 1960s - early 70's technology ... it was too much fun ... those were the days ... DecWriter terminals ... breaking into staff offices to be able to use VDTs ... knowing _exactly_ where on the side to hit the beehive terminal when the screen started going wonky on you ... reprogramming Adventure with my friends (added a spraycan to the cave).
Somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to play with programming too ... but blew my chance at majoring in computer science in college because of extreme math-o-phobia. No calculus for this wolf, nosiree ... so today, instead of working with computers and playing with people, I work with people and play with computers ...
Programming as a hobby is also something that fell by the wayside ... there are lots of other people doing that, and I can play with all _their_ hard work just fine. Besides, I don't think there is much call for a pascal programmer these days ... or fortran ... and APL just never really took off ... Oh Well.
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