3 ms·

My dad passed away three years ago. He began his career in the 60's and 70's, programming on punch cards. I remember him taking my brother and I to his cubicle

by japhyr 12y ago

My dad passed away three years ago. He began his career in the 60's and 70's, programming on punch cards. I remember him taking my brother and I to his cubicle at DEC in the 70's, letting us play a space invaders clone on a terminal. He taught me to program at 5 or 6 years old; I'll always remember my parents playing a simple number-guessing game I wrote in BASIC. When my dad passed away, I went through his computer to help my mom figure out what to do with it. I say it was to help my mom, but really it was one last conversation about computers with my dad. I pored over the projects he was working on, and the books he had open on his desk. I remember thinking that this was the last language he'd use, the last modern framework he'd be working with. I remember feeling sad that no one would get to use this last project he was building. So I see the old OS's popping up in the virtual machines described in the article, and all I can see is my dad. It starts to feel like grief, but then that feeling mixes with appreciation for everything my dad shared with me over the years. I didn't go into programming professionally out of college, but my dad's passing is pulling me back into it. I wish for one more day's conversation with him, to share what I'm doing these days. We all love programming for many reasons, but at the end of the day it's really about how our work with computers and programming brings us into close circles with some of the best people we'll know.

kingrolo 12y ago
I can relate to this. My Dad loved computer hardware. He grew up in Mauritius with not much, and I think the concept of getting rid of things which weren't broken was alien to him. He lived alone, and when he passed away a couple of years ago I went through the process of clearing his house and I really got to see the extent of it. Two BBCs, two Amigas, a ZX81, a dragon32 and it seemed like every floppy disk from my childhood. So much of it reignited memories I didn't realise were still in there. Old floppy disks with my handwriting on, some for games which I recognised from the disk even if I didn't remember the title, 3.5 inch floppies with a hole punched in the corner to make them high density (remembers that?) Despite always trying to encourage him to clean up his house I was so glad he kept it all. This time I took lots of pictures, donated the computers to a charity who takes old one, and most of the floppies are now in my loft. I tell myself I'll look through them at some imaginary point in the future. I also recovered over 40 hard disks from the various PCs in different states of repair. I went through about half soon after he died, and will go on with more of them when I feel the need. Like you say, it feels a bit like checking in with him. I must have been 5 or 6 years old and I vividly remember staring as a screen of BASIC of some sort on a computer he'd brought home from a car boot sale or somewhere. I was trying to figure out how to assign a number to a variable. B = 1. Got that. B is now 1. But how do I add one to it? B + 1? Hmmmm, why doesn't B change? etc etc. I went straight from school to code, and I have no idea what I'd be doing now if it wasn't for having computers around as a kid. It makes me think about the footprint I'd leave for my kids to discover now. It'd be pretty much all digital, but with storage being so plentiful these days, and with gmail's archive and things like Dropbox and cloud storage, you'd think it would stretch right back to their birth. I'm not deleting emails which I think might one day tell something about who I am, and am dumping the occasional thing in a Dropbox dir, so if I got hit by a bus there's be plenty of info to tell my kids about me.
- foobarge 12y ago
  > 3.5 inch floppies with a hole punched in the corner to make them high density I don't remember that. I remember the trick of punching a hole in a 5¼ to make it double sided though.
- JadeNB 12y ago
  > I tell myself I'll look through them at some imaginary point in the future. I'm sure you already know this, but, if you're serious about looking through them, please don't wait! I found an old cache of floppies myself a while back, and looked forward to a nostalgic stroll through their contents, but after less than 10 years almost half the content was corrupted. It probably won't make a huge difference after all this time anyway, but please at least archive to a more durable medium while you wait! (Of course, maybe I've missed the point and just the pleasure of having them is worth more than any data you might get off them—in which case, don't mind me.)
  - kingrolo 12y ago
    Good point - it did cross my mind but not sure why I didn't think about it recently. Thanks.
jacquesm 12y ago
> I remember feeling sad that no one would get to use this last project he was building. Why not finish it?
- japhyr 12y ago
  I thought about that, and I was also looking through his work with that idea in mind. One simple reason - he was a woodworker, and he was building a woodworking-focused CAD project. I know very little about woodworking, and I wouldn't bring the project to a very meaningful conclusion. I had one last lesson from my dad, from that afternoon looking through his projects. My dad went through his career with a mindset that you build your projects to perfection before releasing them, and you don't talk about them much until they're complete and ready to share. I realized that if I kept any shred of that mindset, none of my projects would ever see the light of day. So I resolved right then and there to build stuff that sees actual use. Shortly after that I decided to start attending tech conferences, and learning to polish my practice enough to release usable software. That has opened doors I never imagined, and now I'm starting to build a second career in software development. That's what I wish he could see - that I'm taking the skills he gave me and starting to build things that others use. I really appreciate that final lesson.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Your dad seems to have taken a woodworkers attitude to building software, a true craftsman indeed. And it looks like you have taken his gift and used it to good effect, as a dad that's something to be very proud of.
kator 12y ago
As a tech nerd dad of three kids and having been in tech for 30 years this story touched me. Thanks for sharing, I feel your grief as if I were the father looking back. I love my children but they've all sort of gone various directions none of them are quite the uber nerd I am. They call me once in a while "dad my sound isn't working" etc. I've always sort of been their tech crutch, providing them with answers, trying to teach them each time but in general they just say "Yea dad just fix it please". LOL The greatest gift of being a father is knowing just how much mine had to love me because he didn't kill me while I was growing up. I'm sure it was no different for your father as clearly he wanted to share his wonderment with you and hoped like I do that for just a small flash of time that you understood a bit of what excited him in his life.
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twicenone 12y ago
What a lovely comment. Brought tears to my eyes. My father also died three years ago, and all we really have to remember him is photos. I'd say you're very lucky to have such a rich legacy. I just wonder if my kids will ever look at all the stuff I've written over the years.

by japhyr 12y ago

kingrolo 12y ago

I can relate to this. My Dad loved computer hardware. He grew up in Mauritius with not much, and I think the concept of getting rid of things which weren't broken was alien to him. He lived alone, and when he passed away a couple of years ago I went through the process of clearing his house and I really got to see the extent of it. Two BBCs, two Amigas, a ZX81, a dragon32 and it seemed like every floppy disk from my childhood. So much of it reignited memories I didn't realise were still in there. Old floppy disks with my handwriting on, some for games which I recognised from the disk even if I didn't remember the title, 3.5 inch floppies with a hole punched in the corner to make them high density (remembers that?) Despite always trying to encourage him to clean up his house I was so glad he kept it all. This time I took lots of pictures, donated the computers to a charity who takes old one, and most of the floppies are now in my loft. I tell myself I'll look through them at some imaginary point in the future. I also recovered over 40 hard disks from the various PCs in different states of repair. I went through about half soon after he died, and will go on with more of them when I feel the need. Like you say, it feels a bit like checking in with him. I must have been 5 or 6 years old and I vividly remember staring as a screen of BASIC of some sort on a computer he'd brought home from a car boot sale or somewhere. I was trying to figure out how to assign a number to a variable. B = 1. Got that. B is now 1. But how do I add one to it? B + 1? Hmmmm, why doesn't B change? etc etc. I went straight from school to code, and I have no idea what I'd be doing now if it wasn't for having computers around as a kid. It makes me think about the footprint I'd leave for my kids to discover now. It'd be pretty much all digital, but with storage being so plentiful these days, and with gmail's archive and things like Dropbox and cloud storage, you'd think it would stretch right back to their birth. I'm not deleting emails which I think might one day tell something about who I am, and am dumping the occasional thing in a Dropbox dir, so if I got hit by a bus there's be plenty of info to tell my kids about me.

foobarge 12y ago
> 3.5 inch floppies with a hole punched in the corner to make them high density I don't remember that. I remember the trick of punching a hole in a 5¼ to make it double sided though.
JadeNB 12y ago
> I tell myself I'll look through them at some imaginary point in the future. I'm sure you already know this, but, if you're serious about looking through them, please don't wait! I found an old cache of floppies myself a while back, and looked forward to a nostalgic stroll through their contents, but after less than 10 years almost half the content was corrupted. It probably won't make a huge difference after all this time anyway, but please at least archive to a more durable medium while you wait! (Of course, maybe I've missed the point and just the pleasure of having them is worth more than any data you might get off them—in which case, don't mind me.)
- kingrolo 12y ago
  Good point - it did cross my mind but not sure why I didn't think about it recently. Thanks.

jacquesm 12y ago

> I remember feeling sad that no one would get to use this last project he was building. Why not finish it?

japhyr 12y ago
I thought about that, and I was also looking through his work with that idea in mind. One simple reason - he was a woodworker, and he was building a woodworking-focused CAD project. I know very little about woodworking, and I wouldn't bring the project to a very meaningful conclusion. I had one last lesson from my dad, from that afternoon looking through his projects. My dad went through his career with a mindset that you build your projects to perfection before releasing them, and you don't talk about them much until they're complete and ready to share. I realized that if I kept any shred of that mindset, none of my projects would ever see the light of day. So I resolved right then and there to build stuff that sees actual use. Shortly after that I decided to start attending tech conferences, and learning to polish my practice enough to release usable software. That has opened doors I never imagined, and now I'm starting to build a second career in software development. That's what I wish he could see - that I'm taking the skills he gave me and starting to build things that others use. I really appreciate that final lesson.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Your dad seems to have taken a woodworkers attitude to building software, a true craftsman indeed. And it looks like you have taken his gift and used it to good effect, as a dad that's something to be very proud of.

kator 12y ago

As a tech nerd dad of three kids and having been in tech for 30 years this story touched me. Thanks for sharing, I feel your grief as if I were the father looking back. I love my children but they've all sort of gone various directions none of them are quite the uber nerd I am. They call me once in a while "dad my sound isn't working" etc. I've always sort of been their tech crutch, providing them with answers, trying to teach them each time but in general they just say "Yea dad just fix it please". LOL The greatest gift of being a father is knowing just how much mine had to love me because he didn't kill me while I was growing up. I'm sure it was no different for your father as clearly he wanted to share his wonderment with you and hoped like I do that for just a small flash of time that you understood a bit of what excited him in his life.

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twicenone 12y ago

What a lovely comment. Brought tears to my eyes. My father also died three years ago, and all we really have to remember him is photos. I'd say you're very lucky to have such a rich legacy. I just wonder if my kids will ever look at all the stuff I've written over the years.