A computer science career that almost happened...

[MineralMan]

In 1955, I was ten years old, and had a fascination with radio and television and the electronics that went into those things. In one of the many magazines I read on the subject at the time, I was reading about Raytheon's CK722 transistor, the first commercially available transistor at a price suitable for many applications. I had no money, so I wrote to Raytheon, addressing the letter to Norman Krim, the developer of the CK722, expressing an interest in experimenting with the transistor. About three weeks later, a package came in the mail to me, with six of the newly-released devices in it, along with a letter from Krim encouraging me to maintain my interest in electronics. Those six transistors went into dozens of circuits and did the most amazing things. One of them was a simple flip-flop logic circuit that I used as an audio oscillator.

My interest grew even more. By the time I graduated from high school in 1963, I was committed to a career in electronics, so I packed my bags and went to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo with a major in electronics engineering. Log-log Pickett slide rule in hand, I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. I jumped in with both feet. By the middle of my freshman year, I was taking a Fortran class and beginning to see that computers were going to be the thing that took over the entire planet.

One afternoon, there was a presentation in the Engineering department's auditorium. The speaker was Jack Kilby, who had developed TI's first integrated circuit. He was there to talk about the new logic integrated circuits TI was introducing to the market. After the presentation, I hung around and talked to him. I said that I was just a freshman engineering major, but that it was clear to me that computer design was going to be the direction for the future. I asked him for more information about the new logic devices. He took my address. About a month later, a package arrived. In it were 24 of the new ICs, along with engineering data, sample circuit designs, and a very nice letter from Kilby.

At Cal Poly, freshmen had a freshman project to do by the end of the year. I dove right in and designed that project to use the new ICs. It was a frequency counter with a binary display. It was also the first freshman project to use ICs at Cal Poly.

So, what happened? Well, the next year, my girlfriend of three years dumped me, I dropped out of school, and drove a 1953 Chrysler New Yorker across the country to see Dr. King speak in Birmingham, Alabama after crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge. By the time I returned to college after an enlistment in the USAF, the Electronics Engineering department had no openings for returning students, so I majored in English.

And there it is...a career that almost happened...

You just never know. But, the path I took has been a wonderful one. No regrets whatsoever.

[MADem]

1. But you saw the Rev. Dr. King!

Here's the truth--if you REALLY wanted it, you would have found a way.

I think you ended up on the right path, when all is said and done.

[MineralMan]

2. Oh, I've never regretted any of it at all.

Life turns many corners, and a guy never knows what to expect. I just follow where things go and let life lead me. It's been great! Either path would have been fine, but the one I took has been a really good one. I added a line to that effect to the OP.

[MADem]

3. If you had asked me, as an eighteen year old kid, if I would have taken the path I ended up on, I

would have never believed it. People have perceptions and attitudes about what they think I believe because of my career path, and they couldn't be more wrong--but that's on them, not me!

Funny how the road takes us to surprising places. I'm with you, though--no regrets.

[mazzarro]

4. Much as you don't have any regrets

I grieve for the lose of what you would have given us. I do believe that each person's innovation is unique and as such we have all missed out on the uniqueness of what your mind would have produced. Nonetheless, I thank you for sharing the story and I'm happy that you are at peace with your eventual life-path.

[MineralMan]

7. Who knows? I ended up writing for computer magazines and

had my own software company for several years, selling applications I wrote myself. For a year, I was Chairman of the Board of the Association of Shareware Professionals, so I ended up doing some of the stuff I might have been doing anyway, but independently. Many interesting things have happened during my life, and I wouldn't trade any of it for anything else.

[tularetom]

5. Funny how these things happen

In the summer of 1959 right after I graduated from HS, I was driving a propane truck for my dad and lacking any definite career goals beyond attending the local community college. As I was making a delivery to a nearby farm, I saw someone I knew, the older brother of a girl I had dated in high school, peering through some sort of telescope mounted on a tripod by the side of the road. I stopped to talk to him and learned he was a surveyor taking measurements for a new culvert the county was proposing. He told me his boss had a huge backlog of work and was looking for new rodmen/chainmen. When I got back to town I went in to see the boss and he offered me a job on the spot at a hell of a lot more than my dad was paying me. Plus it looked like a fun outdoor job. By the end of the summer through some fortuitous circumstances and a lot of curiosity on my part I had learned to operate transits and levels and supervise a crew myself.

At last I knew what I wanted to do. I enrolled in a civil engineering course of study at COS in Visalia CA and worked afternoons and weekends for the survey firm. It took me another 7 years to get a college degree (thanks to Uncle Sam, marriage and the birth of a daughter) but I graduated from Cal with a BS in CE at age 25.

Of course, after about 10 years working as an engineer I got promoted into management and found myself confronted with a whole lot of things I was totally unprepared to deal with, like politics, personnel and labor relations, and municipal public budgets. I retired as the county public works director in 2000 after almost 25 years of hardly ever doing any engineering.

Looking back I can see that a lot of things could have happened differently, many of which would have been more financially rewarding, but I couldn't be happier with things have turned out.

[MineralMan]

8. Life's funny, isn't it.

The paths we plan aren't always the paths we take. What fun!

[OutNow]

6. A computer career that almost DIDN'T happen

After a high school education where I didn't learn very much and a stint in the USAF where the major benefit was keeping me out of the draft and the infantry, I applied for a job at a local manufacturing company in 1971. I had an uncle that worked there and he got me an interview. Since he worked in the office, and I considered office work to be better than working in the plant, I was offered two different jobs; mail room clerk and computer operator trainee. The mail room job was 9 - 5 Monday to Friday, while the computer job was 3rd shift with weekend shifts about once a month. The day shift job was more to my liking, while working 3rd shift seemed like a major impediment to my social life. Before I made my final decision I talked to my uncle. He told me to take the computer job because computers were the "future". So that's what I did.

40 years later, after working my way from computer operations to programming, to systems programming, to software architecture to R&D working for a major computer company- with a BA and MS acquired along the way by attending college for a decade always at night school. I've traveled to Europe and Asia giving lectures about technology and enjoyed at least 75% of my jobs. I always politely refused offers to become a manager.

And there it is.. a career that almost didn't happen.

As MineralMan noted - you just never know.

[MineralMan]

9. Yup, you never know, but

we're all pretty adaptable.

[donco]

10. This song

comes to mind.

[MineralMan]

11. Not one of my favorite artists,

but it's a good song.