Computing actually started off as gaming for me..I got to write programs for a friends Atari 800 in BASIC. We wrote this long program to calculate torque, horsepower and weight of a vehicle to understand the speed achieved in a quarter mile drag race. Once completed...the program gave you instant answers to all that was factored in. It took us about a month to figure it out, but it worked. We called it "Racer"
I started off real computing on an 8086. I had an Amstrad. All it had was a command line and a monochrome monitor. Ms-Dos 2 point something...8 inch and 5.25 inch floppy drives. You had a choice of color monitors..green or orange text. I had an external modem (300 baud) that cost me around $200, plus I had to pay long distance fees to connect to a bulletin board "online"...definitely not the good old days.
Software...that was always a new beginning. Back in the day, (DRM)digital rights management consisted of a rule, "Don't copy that floppy!" Lotus 1-2-3, dbase, Peachtree, PC-Calc, PCtools, Wordstar, etc. I didn't have the money to buy all those programs so I helped install them for friends and businesses. I had to learn how to use them along with whoever I was teaching!
Over the years I've seen it all change to using a graphical user interface or GUI rather than a command line or CLI. Personally, I like the GUI usually, it's generally simplified but I do revert back to command line when all else fails. I'm definitely not good enough to call myself a coder. I believe that your information is important and security of that information is also VERY important. I'm not able to call myself a security professional but I do aspire to be one day!
I've played with the phone system since the phreaker days and continue to this day. I think communication should be free. We have the internet and that's been a huge step toward that freedom. COMMUNICATE!!
