Life Stories #2 - Learning to Program

Back when I was in junior high school, I decided that I wanted to learn how to program computers. Our high school just received a couple of TSR-80 computers, and I wanted to get into the “computer lab” to learn how to program computers, and to play some computer games that were rumored to be in the lab.

At that time, I had never programmed a computer or worked with one, so I was starting from scratch. I went to the library and picked-up a book on programming in BASIC. I read the book, and soon I was writing small programs in BASIC on the TSR-80, and saving them on the large 5” floppy disks. I made at attempt at writing a basic maze game where you navigate through a maze using only a text interface.

Later on, I saved enough money to purchase my own VIC-20 personal computer. Again, I learned how to program in assembly and wrote a very basic, millipede-like game, using pixel graphics on the VIC-20. By the time I was enrolling in a programming class in high school, I was able to skip the level 1 programming class and move onto the level 2 programming class, without taking any type of test. My math teacher knew my capabilities and wouldn't allow me into the level 1 class. In the level 2 class, I wrote a program that generated random numbers as a substitute for dice for role playing games.

The result of all of this self-initiated learning is a career in Software Engineering, where I continue to learn new technologies and languages and apply that learning to solve problems. I have been doing this for 17 years, and loving every minute of it!