My First Program

I was a junior in 1976 or '77 at St. Thomas Academy, a Catholic military high school for boys in Mendota Heights, MN. One day in a small office at the back of Mr. Rongitsch's math class, a terminal appeared along with an acoustic modem. Before that time I had only typed on a manual typewriter from my dad's navy days, on my calculator, and maybe on the cash register at White Castle. A dog-eared copy of a manual on programming in BASIC was there and the terminal connected to an HP1000 minicomputer. I don't remember how I found out about all this! What should I program? Somehow I chose Over and Under - a gambling game played with two dice. With Over and Under you are betting on the roll of the dice. You bet that the total of the roll will be under 7, 7, or over 7. My program allowed the player to establish an initial stake and then bet any sum of $ up to the total in the stake. In one version of the game you could play with negative money.

I enjoyed this whole thing immensely. The sound of the acoustic modem, finding the problem, learning BASIC, fooling around with odds, noticing the intriguing foibles like negative money...

But not only that I met my girlfriend there in that lab and gained a "second family." I launched my career. I discovered a lifelong love of software.

It seems fitting to launch The Software Stories with this story. What about you? What was your first program? What does it mean to you? Join me in telling The Software Stories.