I wrote some freeware apps when I was 17 in 1989 for QuickBBS, but I guess those weren't commercial. I think the first code I was paid to write was a config to

I wrote some freeware apps when I was 17 in 1989 for QuickBBS, but I guess those weren't commercial. I think the first code I was paid to write was a config tool for some anti-virus software for the US Air Force in San Antonio, TX (!). It was written in C for DOS (using the CXL library). The Air Force didn't have a clue that I was an up and coming phone phreaker, hacker, and many other bad things :) My first paid full-time programming job was to write a voice-response system for a bank (again in C for DOS) using dialogic-compatible voice cards (Rhetorex, if I recall correctly). This was the first time I had been exposed to a state machine (I hadn't studied computer science yet). What has changed? Wow, what hasn't changed? Back then, a hacker's wet dream box might have been a Sparcstation running SunOS or later, Solaris. I always thought I would have to eventually learn Windows programming, but somehow I managed to avoid it (being in prison from 1995-1999 helped in this regard - by the time I got out, Linux was well-accepted).