I was in elementary school and a guy came in for "Career Day" to speak with the five of us who were interested in computing. He brought a NeXT computer (I have

I was in elementary school and a guy came in for "Career Day" to speak with the five of us who were interested in computing. He brought a NeXT computer (I have no idea which one), with some rectangular cartridge (must have been the magneto-optical media). He explained why it was such a fantastic machine, and proceeded to spend the allotted 30 minutes attempting to boot it. I have no idea who this guy was or what he did for a living, but it was my very first experience watching a demo go horribly wrong. I have to say, that event influenced me in over-preparing for any sort of demo. I don't remember the details, but I remembered that it was NeXT, and I remembered that it didn't boot. (OK, I'll admit that I partly remembered the name because the capital XT reminded me of my clunky IBM PC XT clone I had at home).