My Nerd Past and Two Nerds

I’m sure I’ve blogged before about my early introduction to computers but I can’t find the posts so… back in grade 9 (1983 for those keeping track) I decided to check out the Computer Club that had started at school. The science teachers had set up an ad-hoc computer lab in a room where they stored the big rolls of craft paper. If I remember correctly, the room held a mix of computers. I am certain there was a Comodore 64, a TRS-80, an Apple ][ (or more likely an Apple ][+) and some sort of early Compaq. I shoulder-surfed for the most part, watching the uber-nerds¹ do their thing.

Later that year, my parents bought an Apple knock-off, an APCO II+ and I spent hours typing snippets of BASIC code from BYTE magazine into the computer, saving to 5 1/4″ floppy discs on an external drive.This also gave my younger brother his first taste of computer gaming as he spent hours playing Evolution.

The following year, the school took over the one of the typing classrooms and installed 24 Apple ][e desktops. They pulled a gym teacher in to lead the class, but if I recall, we taught him much more than he taught us that year. My crowning achievement was my BASIC Christmas card. I wrote code that drew a Christmas tree and lights that flashed on and off until one hit escape or whatever to stop the program running.

I was reminded of all this when I listened to the first episode of Two Nerds podcast — one old nerd, Shane Birley  (who is still a bit younger than me) and one new nerd, Alex Blackie (who is just a few years older than Kiddo). It also reminded me that when Kiddo discovered she was older than both YouTube and Flickr, she was outright shocked! How times have changed in — OMG almost 30 years. So far, they’ve only posted two episodes but I suspect there will be more to come. If you’re nerdy and you know it, you might want to listen in.

¹These uber-nerds would eventually go on to build some amazing tech businesses locally and elsewhere. They kept me in the loop about tech (I recall watching one friend connect, WarGames style, to another computer using an acoustic modem) and in early 1993 showed me The Internet via a Lynx browser in the University computer lab.