I Was There

It’s simply unbelievable to feel and see how technology has evolved and brought changes to almost everything in the past three decades. It's still fresh to me, that was on the later part of 1979 when I first stepped into the world of computer technology. I thought, carrying 18 semester units on my second year in the College of Engineering and Mathematics at Adamson University, Manila, Philippines wasn’t really much of a challenge; I decided to enroll in a short-term, vocational course specific on COBOL Language and BASIC programming at a nearby private school. I had zero knowledge on anything about computers. Out of my curiosity on computer technology and the fact that I was surrounded with several cute girls from the neighboring colleges, I actually did very well in the class and learned quite a lot.

I could still reemember how small was our computer classroom and we had take turn keying-in our respective personal profile on a TRS (Tandy Radio Shack-80) then after three weeks of didactics, we then had to apply what we learned by coding our assigned COBOL algorithms on on a bundle of punch cards that we had to work as a team to complete the tasks by taking turn driving those huge keypunching machine. After making sure that the codes are flawless, we then moved to the EDP (Electronic Data Processing) room that was packed with several IBM-360 mainframe computers next to the shelves and rolls of computer tapes (no hard disk then) and gigantic, loud printers loaded with wide sheets of printing papers with holes each side and hooked on pronged paper tracks. And, listening to how the computer room staff conversed with each other, for me, was absolutely amazing. They were sharp, astute, and appeared truly sophisticated.

Since then, my interest and fascination with computers rapidly developed; however, it had to take the backseat on my list of priorities when my father and I unexpectedly migrated here in California, U.S. of A on June 1982. Honestly, I’m telling you, God planned something good for me; I’ll tell you how and in what way... on my next blog.

Still,
Dante