In 1979, when I was entering my senior year of high school, I was rather amazed when a buddy of mine told me that our little small-town, farm country school had gotten a computer terminal. Note I don’t say “computer,” as the unit was not a stand-alone device. Instead, it consisted of a tiny green-text screen, a keyboard, and a modem. One connected the terminal to the mainframe computer down at the University of Northern Iowa with the modem, which required taking the handset off the old desktop rotary-dial phone that sat on the desk next to the terminal, placing it in a special cradle, then dialing up the number of the main machine down at the university. With a bit of luck, you’d have a successful connection, and my rather tech-savvy buddy (who later had a career in computer animation and graphic design) showed me how to type in very simple programs.
For a country kid whose…
