Great article Steve!

My first program was in Fortran on punch-cards during my senior year of high school.

In the early 80's I got a Vic 20 and a Sargon chess game cartridge. I wrote a blackjack program for it and then turned my interest toward business. I remember walking into my company with a black and white TV, the Vic20, and a cassette tape recorder storage device with my product pricing program ready to go. I demo'ed it for the CEO and chairman of the board and they loved it. They threw a few different products and scenarios at it and the price was accurate to the penny every time. They purchased an IBM PC XT along with the PFS database and word processing software and my career in IT began.

It's been an incredible 3 decades. Thanks for the trip down memory lane! 🙂