#introduction 🧵 2/9 In our spare time, my wife and I coach a #FIRST Tech Challenge team (#FTC16461 #robotics #robots #omgrobots https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/what-is-first-tech-challenge) out of our garage and volunteer with #CivilAirPatrol (http://gocivilairpatrol.com/about). I also coach a #CyberPatriot #CyberSecurity competition team (https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/competition/Competition-Overview/competition-overview). Our two older kids are in college, and our youngest is still in high school. With what little time is left, I like experimenting with #3dPrinting #iot and #homeautomation.

#introduction 🧵 3/9 I started coding on a #Commodore64 some time in the mid 80s. I don't know how much my parents paid for that #C64. I think my mom needed a word processor for some college classes and that may have been the main reason. My brother and I would take turns typing in BASIC programs from computer magazines - also thoughtfully purchased by our mom. Did my mom know something about the future, about computers being central to almost every job we would have in our lifetimes?

#introduction 🧵 4/9 Our original #C64 went belly up at some point, and was replaced with a C128. We weren't fancy enough to go for the Amiga. I probably knew 2 or 3 other folks with C64/C128 machines, and my brother had a friend with an Amiga. I don't think I ever totally figured out what LOAD "*.*",8,1 really meant. I could probably Google it now. I just knew it meant "run whatever is on this floppy".

#introduction 🧵 5/9 In the 90s a good friend introduced me to the world of PCs and dial-up BBS's. I begged and begged and begged my parents for a PC. Eventually my parents gave in and we ordered some odd-brand 486SX-20 from a Computer Shopper magazine ad. It came with a 2400 baud modem, an 80 MB hard drive and 2MB of RAM. Later I would frequent computer shows hunting for upgrades, RAM, a faster modem (19200 then 38400), and bigger hard drives.

#introduction 🧵 6/9 More begging ensued to get my parents to install another phone line. Once we had a second phone line, I ran a #BBS for a few months. BBS time was mostly about messages, #Fidonet, and games. I played Tradewars 2002, Legend of the Red Dragon, and some others any time I wasn't busy with homework. I see some strong parallels to the obsessions my kids have run through with Minecraft & Discord.

#introduction 🧵 7/9 I leveraged my BASIC background to launch into Microsoft QuickBasic. Taught myself Turbo Pascal via a “Learn in 30 days” style book. Then did the same thing for C++. My senior year of high school brought an opportunity for dual-enrollment at the local college for Calc I & II. This came with a student email address, and the ability to dial into the school network, which happened to be connected with.... the Internet.

#introduction 🧵 8/9 This brought me into the world of gopher, MUDs, IRC. I was “joat” on Undernet IRC for a while. Spent most of my time on a Windows-oriented PC help channel, just chatting about computers and helping folks out. My first experience with Linux involved downloading some obscene number of 1.44 floppy disk images for Slackware, writing them to several boxes of blank disks, and then setting up the family PC to dual boot between DOS and Linux.