Dan Rigsby – Coding Up Style

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with technology.  I was born in 1975 in rural Indiana and as such, my first encounter with a computer was in second grade at school.  It was an old Apple 2 computer and I remember that we could only use it under constant supervision from the teacher. In 1982 there weren’t many computers in school and home computers were still few and far between. Those that the school did have were expensive, heavily guarded, and always in use.  I probably only got to work on it a couple of times a week.  I do remember begging the teacher to let me stay in over recess to work on the computer while the other students played outside.  This first brush with a computer quickly turned into a love, but I knew we would never have one at home.  It was such an impossibility that at the time, I doubt I even dreamt about owning one.  

It wasn’t until I saw the 1983 movie, WarGames, that my love turned into more of an obsession.  After my parents took me to see the movie in the theatre, I distinctly remember coming home, pulling out a box and an old blue toy typewriter, placing the typewriter at the base of the box, and pretending that the box was a monitor and the typewriter was a computer.  I spent hours playing with that setup as if it were real.  Many kids my age were playing outside or watching TV, but here I was pretending I was programming. At this point, I didn’t even really know what programming was, but I was entranced by the idea that you could key in some commands and the computer would process those commands into something visibly displayed on the screen.

For the next few months, all I could think about or talk about was computers.  I’m sure sure my parents would have called me “obessed”.  I got an early subscription to Byte Magazine and tried to read all I could.  Of course most of it I didn’t understand, nor could I put it in practice.  However that all changed in the Christmas of 1985.  My parents, to my utter shock, bought a Commodore 64 for myself and my brothers to share. 

Here is a picture of the blessed event.  I am in the back holding the computer and looking quite excited and proud.  How many 10 year olds could say they have a computer at home?  My brothers on the other hand, were too interested in a slinky that Santa had left them.  This trend continued, as I don’t ever recall either of them wanting anything to do with the computer. I do have to give my youngest brother, Phillip, props for wearing a Transformers shirt in this picture though.

For the next year, my time spent with the Commodore 64 involved me keying in Basic programs from the back of Byte magazine (which rarely seemed to work).  However, around the age of 11, my Mom’s boyfriend at the time had a friend he brought over who knew a few things about computers.  I spent a lot of time with him, and he showed my things on the computer that I didn’t know were possible such as programs to play music (very mono-instrument midi-like music) and software to create banners and cards.  As a young child in a small town, I was sheltered and was really oblivious to all you could do with this little computer.  The man invited me to attend a local user’s group with him called “Hoosier Hills Commodore Club”.  I went one week and couldn’t wait to come back again.  I wanted to be around others that were into computers and who could teach me more.  The membership fees were only $25 a year, and my parents were more than happy to pay this if it meant that I was actually getting out of the house and start building “social” skills.

Imagine, if you will, a club of about 12 people, most of who were men over 30 with the exception of a single woman and an 11 year old kid. I remember that a couple of the members included some people who worked at local electronic stores and at least one guy from the phone company. I’m sure it would have been quite a sight to see that group together.   One of our “field trips” as a club included a evening tour of the phone company, focusing on how it worked and what types of computers they used.  I had never seen so many computers in one place, and for the next several weeks wondered how I could get a job there when I got older.  Most of the time, the club pertained to software for the commodore, but the highlight was a multi-month training course on how to program in Basic.  We got a thick binder that went over every Basic command and included a number of sample programs.  This is when my eyes were really opened to what programming was and what I could do with it.  That week (with the Basic book in hand and my Commodore 64 in my bedroom) is where I can really say, “That is when I started programming”.

The story of my life with computers  continues on today, and there are a lot of other “geeky” stories to share been my time with Commodore 64 and today.  Perhaps I will write more about these times later, or if you know me and what to hear more, just let me know.