Introduction When I was but a wee lass, my school–the first on Long Island, New York, I remember being told–got this thing called a computer. I vaguely remember hearing about such a contraption in sci-fi shows like Star Trek, but I didn’t really know what it was. At that time, one of the teachers who had taken the lead there, a great guy by the name of Mr. Mincio, asked the five best students in the school, of which I was one at the time (I didn’t keep that up for much longer, but I digress), to join the fledgling “computer club.” Four of us said yes. I’m very glad I did because that decision has charted the course for much of my life. Interestingly, three weeks later, I was the only student who stuck around. Everyone else wanted out. Later that year, my parents bought me my first computer for Christmas: a Timex Sinclair 1000. That was, by any standard of almost any day, decidedly not a great piece of hardware. That didn’t matter to me, though; I couldn’t be happier with it, and I learned more than I can recount with it.weiterlesen