A personal history in a few very nerdy chapters

Pac-Man

The first “computer” that really knocked on my brain wasn’t even called a computer. It was an Atari 2600 with those giant wood-paneled vibes, a plastic spaceship parked under a living-room TV. Somewhere far from home (friends of my parents), the kind of visit where adults drink coffee forever, I met Pac-Man and the notorious E.T. They weren’t just games, they were a portal. The graphics were blocky miracles, the sound was pure electricity, and my head did that little swivel where a new obsession clicks into place. I didn’t own one. I barely got to touch it. But the idea got in. That was enough.

I learned all my basic computer and programming skills on Commodore computers, like the C64, Amiga 500, and 1200. Twenty-eight years ago, I upgraded my Amiga 1200 with a faster processor (Motorola 68030) and extra memory (4 megabytes). I also added an FPU (Motorola 68882), a realtime clock, and an internal hard disk (120 megabytes), which is still working correctly in 2020 (wow). At that time, this was a fast Amiga.