I was intrigued by computers as early as first grade, when my dad showed me a magazine photo of a computer. "So, if you work on a computer, you basically watch TV all day, right?", I asked my dad. I don't remember what he replied, but I kept a cut-out of that photo. Later, I made a toy computer with a cardboard shoe-box, plastic and a flashlight. "Look, dad. I have a computer now!".
In 3rd grade, we could choose painting, or computers as one of the courses. It was an obvious choice for me. Why on earth would I choose painting? The first "computer class" was all theory and everything flew over my head. "Well, maybe I should have taken painting", I thought. However, things changed the next time when we were taken inside a computer lab. It was full of those early desktops which did not have a hard drive and ran DOS. They had slots for these gigantic floppy disks. I also loved the smell of the air that came out of the air conditioners.
We were using LOGO, which is a language for drawing. I recommend reading about it. It's a fun one. In a nutshell, you are given a "turtle" with a "pen". Upon your command, the turtle moves around the screen, leaving a trail. I typed a couple of commands which were written on the board:
FD 50
RT 90
Which means, "Move forward 50 pixels, then make a 90-degrees right turn". I didn't care about the output. I was exhilarated at the fact that I just operated a computer. Not a toy one, a real one with a real screen!
"Dad, I operated a computer!", I yelled when I reached home.
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