My First

The first computer at the Boggy Thicket was one of these - a Commodore 64.  Its memory resided on an accessory, a cartridge-type tape recorder.

It wasn’t good for much – at least to an operator with my skill level, which was almost nonexistent. 

I did write a couple of very simple programs for it using BASIC.  I didn’t design the programs, just copied them, typed them in from an instruction manual. 

It did teach me that computers are totally unforgiving and sort of stupid – they do not have the capability to determine what you meant to say – what you type is either totally right or it is totally wrong.

That is still true – at least regarding the computers and programs that I use today.  The only possible exception that comes to mind is spell-check, and the best the spell-check application can do is a list of wild-assed guesses about what you meant to say.  Even that is usually wrong.