ahhhhhh, memories

[ghazban@ghazban.com (Ghazban)]

I was talking with a friend about "old-school" computer days and
thought I might enjoy sharing one of my stories with the people here. 
I don't post much, but I read these groups every day.

In the summer of 1984 we moved from Kansas to Minnesota, and I was
going into 7th grade.  The school system there was much larger and
more modern, and they actually had a computer lab there (apple II+ and
IIe systems mostly on a corvus hard drive system) and offered 2
quarters of computer classes (basic programming).  Talk about heaven,
a geek was born!

I burned thru the basic programming classes, and went on to take 2
more quarters of "independent study" (one in 6502 assembly, one in
basic IC design) and spent 4 quarters as a teachers assistant.

Anyway, my favorite story from this time comes sometime proabably in
my 2nd quarter of the basic programming class.  As I said, most of the
systems were II+ and IIe, but they had a couple old II on the network
as well.  Well, the nice thing about those older systems is a simple
press of reset would drop you to the monitor instead of restarting the
computer.  A friend and I discovered you could use those to peek into
the memory of the corvus login screen and print out to the screen
EVERY username/password.  From the master password, to the principals
password, to the computer department head's password.

This story could have easily wound up on a much worse note (suspension
from school was discussed), but instead lead to the independent study
and much more computer learning from a high school at the time than
anyone could ever expect.

I have lots more stories from that time, like working part time in a
PC XT 4-man motherboard/system clone manufacturer during the summer
and after school stuffing parts into motherboards, or the time my dad
opened the $400 phone bill from my TRS-80 CoCo and its 300 baud modem
(brad from Lost Gonzo was one of the places I called), or the amazing
IRC/IM type program my friend wrote for those Apple II's and the
corvus hard drive network.

Ahhhhh, memories

Bryan
Ghazban