I’ll never forget the first time I encountered Mathematica. It was 30 years ago in a NeXT lab in the basement of a building at Ohio State University. I had spe

I’ll never forget the first time I encountered Mathematica. It was 30 years ago in a NeXT lab in the basement of a building at Ohio State University. I had spent the previous two years tinkering with a junky 486 on a 14” monitor. The NeXT platform alone seemed almost magical and the things i could do with Mathematica just blew my young mind. I would spend hours in there just messing around with it. They also had laser printers in that lab, another technology that I just couldn’t wrap my head around. I had entered school thinking I was going to become a mechanical engineer and design cars and motorcycles. I think that lab was instrumental in me pivoting to a career working with computers.