Education of a Computer Programmer

I came across a photogragh of my first personal computer purchased back in 1983 -- the Apple //e -- and suddenly found myself reminiscing about how I became a computer user. The Apple //e was powered by the venerable MOS Technology 6502 8-bit microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz, and boasted 128 kilobytes of RAM. I recall taking a $2,500 personal loan to make the purchase, which included the hardware shown below along with an Apple Imagewriter dot-matrix printer.

I spent many hours programming and otherwise "playing" on my Apple //e during the mid-1980's. What I did not know at the the time was how important computer technology would become for me and my career. I essentially taught myself to program on the Apple //e at home, and would later build upon what I had learned as I migrated onto more powerful machines in subsequent years. However, my education about personal computers definitely started on the Apple //e computer, and my life has not been the same since.

My how computer technology has evolved.