My name is Andy Anderson, and I’ve been a computer professional since I graduated from the University of Georgia in June of 1983. My formal education includes a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, and several additional courses in system administration and computer security.
On a less formal note, I grew up on the space program of the 1960s and lived through the personal computer revolution in the 1970s and 1980s – from the Radio Shack TRS-80 and the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore-64, through the Apple IIe, the original IBM PC, then the XT and AT, and on to the generic Windows-based computers of today. I’ve built computers from bare components and upgraded computers with new hard drives, more memory, video adapters, network cards, etc. I’ve installed, configured, and used every major version of Windows since Windows/386, as well as some other, less well-known operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD. I was one of the few OS/2 users (back in the day, as they say), and I’m even experienced with Intel-based Macs with OS-X.
However, programming is still my favorite thing to do with computers. I first learned to program in FORTRAN using punch cards on an IBM 370 mainframe. After that I learned COBOL, Pascal, and IBM 360/370 assembly language while still in school. While working my first professional job I taught myself C and dabbled a bit with Ada (does anyone still use Ada today?). In the late 1990s I learned to create web pages with HTML and CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts, then Java in the early 2000s. A couple of years ago I dabbled in Python and Django. Most recently I’ve been updating my skills with HTML 5, CSS 3, and the latest incarnation of JavaScript.
Life is good!