KillroyII Loc: Middle Georgia

Over the years, I have worked the hardware side of avionics and automatic test equipment but been in a position to need to do a little coding to try/test things... in several languages.

This brought up a nice memory of sharing some time with my daughter when she was young (she will be 50 this year and this was back in the 80s). Don't remember her age or grade in school but I was amazed, as she seemed so young to me, when she came home with a project, to gain extra credit in an Advanced Placement class (either math or science) in school. The project was to draw some objects on the screen with BASIC and she had done the basic requirement but was trying to enhance it further and having problems.

We spent 2 evenings with her coming up with thoughts on enhancements and me helping her find pages, from a pamphlet her teacher supplied, that would explain how to implement her ideas... and both of us laughing at the many failed attempts of some things.

We were up too late Thursday night... and my wife scolded both of us. Friday night we were having so much fun we were surprised to see the Saturday morning sun coming up.

The teacher was impressed and not long after I started coming up with parts to build her a computer of her own. She did not choose coding/software engineering for a career but that knowledge/experience helped her in the industry she choose.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

RS Loc: W Columbia, SC

My first schooling in the Army, way back in '61, was the repair of such mechanical
'computers' - key punches, verifiers, sorters, card processors, printers, etc. After
a while, we referred to them as 'card processors' rather than computers. I did that
type of repair work for a number of years, including bouncing from unit to unit in
Vietnam from '67-'68.