In second grade, I and several other kids were given a demo of a TRS-80 computer running a tutorial of how to write a program in BASIC. The tutorial was about d

In second grade, I and several other kids were given a demo of a TRS-80 computer running a tutorial of how to write a program in BASIC. The tutorial was about developing a program to calculate baseball batting averages, I believe. It asked the user some questions about a baseball game, and performed a few steps. Nothing unusual so far -- just like a calculator, right? But then it looped back to ask the questions for the next game, and updated the rolling averages, which of course took into account the information from previous iterations. My jaw hit the floor when I realized the immense power of being able to do things like this -- the possibilities are endless! Something changed in my mind in that very moment, and it's never changed back. From that day on, I was obsessed with thinking about what sort of computer programs I could write.