CompuServe Messages

Tom, To add to others versions of how they got into programming: Majored in chemistry at Penn State in the early 60's but played with the mainframes there because one of my friends was in computer science and he got me interested. Went to work for GE in Valley Forge as a plastics specialist and had to do quick analysis of the results of materials tests working under government contract. GE also happen to be trying to sell this new thing called time-sharing computers and set up a few terminals. They also gave some classes in FORTRAN IV and it fit my needs exactly. Left Pennsylvania in '70 and came to Colorado and joined the police dept., didn't do much more with computers except read about them until the late 70's when I got a home computer (Atari 8bit) and figured I had to know how it worked…so re-learned programming. I met a couple of guys who were working on a program that was to be published and started out beta testing their product. They had a little side project that had sat idle for a few years so "just for fun", I finished it and it got published. They got a few more contracts and I got more involved. In the meantime, the police department decided it was going to not only computerize, but was going to have it's own processors rather than use the city's computers. They needed programmers and I got "elected" to lead up several of the projects. That included design and implementation of a modern Computer Aided Dispatch system in concert with 18 other cities (Pittsburgh being one of them)…and we're still working on that one…and will be for another year or so. Getting involved in computers and programming was a long and sometimes torturous road….but it's sure fun…most of the time. Don