> this was largely a phenomenon confined to a narrow strip of time from the late eighties to the late 00s.
OP dates from 1982. I actually had a comparable experience in 1982 as well, with a Commodore PET-like. There are similar stories dating back earlier, with minicomputers. And I don't think it has stopped, if you know where to look for it. The days of BASIC may be over, but there are more business critical spreadsheet macros around than ever.
> So the days of "Hey, I know how to do that computer stuff!" "Great! Get in here!" are largely over.
I'd say there are more low grade computer problems out there waiting to be fixed than ever. You could probably ring a random person's door and they'd have a dozen issues with their computer / smartphone / WiFi / Universal Remote bugging them.
> Most teenage nerds who liked messing with computers as a hobby didn't spin it up into an explosive career overnight.
And I don't think the story was about that, in the sense of turning that job into a business as such. It was more about the insight that there was gold in them thar hills.
My 1982 experience was that an acquaintance of my parents got kicked off his mainframe account, and needed a different way to process the responses to a questionnaire he needed for his work. His program was written in some "real" programming language like PL/I or Fortran that was not readily available on the CBM machines that were available at school, so I wrote a replacement in BASIC for him. No exciting or sophisticated technical details, I'm afraid.
Details of payment were not worked out in advance, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to earn a multiple of the hourly wage I had made in a factory vacation job earlier. It was then I realized that this might be the right profession for me.
That acquaintance with the questionnaire happened to be a school guidance counselor, so he actually found me a career without even trying to do so…
OP dates from 1982. I actually had a comparable experience in 1982 as well, with a Commodore PET-like. There are similar stories dating back earlier, with minicomputers. And I don't think it has stopped, if you know where to look for it. The days of BASIC may be over, but there are more business critical spreadsheet macros around than ever.
> So the days of "Hey, I know how to do that computer stuff!" "Great! Get in here!" are largely over.
I'd say there are more low grade computer problems out there waiting to be fixed than ever. You could probably ring a random person's door and they'd have a dozen issues with their computer / smartphone / WiFi / Universal Remote bugging them.
> Most teenage nerds who liked messing with computers as a hobby didn't spin it up into an explosive career overnight.
And I don't think the story was about that, in the sense of turning that job into a business as such. It was more about the insight that there was gold in them thar hills.
My 1982 experience was that an acquaintance of my parents got kicked off his mainframe account, and needed a different way to process the responses to a questionnaire he needed for his work. His program was written in some "real" programming language like PL/I or Fortran that was not readily available on the CBM machines that were available at school, so I wrote a replacement in BASIC for him. No exciting or sophisticated technical details, I'm afraid.
Details of payment were not worked out in advance, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to earn a multiple of the hourly wage I had made in a factory vacation job earlier. It was then I realized that this might be the right profession for me.
That acquaintance with the questionnaire happened to be a school guidance counselor, so he actually found me a career without even trying to do so…