Started on a pdp-8/E in 1973 with its staggering 4k of 12-bit memory. "Going to college to program" might have meant going to where the machines were as most of them were on the large size... We had to descend on the college computer centre, which drove the adults nuts. Rugrats running about, fixing their programs for them. Times were different then, but the graduate-to-hacker test was to start with blank paper and end up with a working program. It was too big and too slow, but at the end the new hacker was enlightened.
