Kevin+Lund

= Kevin Lund  =

The following is Kevin Lund's response to one of Liza Loop's calls for stories.

 My story started long before I get my Atari 800 computer at age 15 in 1980. It involves TTY’s, Stanford University, PARC, Alan Kay, and Alto’s

I think I saw my first ‘computers’ on Star Trek when it went into reruns. It showed on my local station at 6pm weekdays, the perfect time for a young school kid. That was when I was in 3rd grade, in ’73-74. During 4th grade, my school, (Baron Park Elementary School in Palo Alto, Ca) received 3 TTYs connected to one of Stanford University’s mainframe computers. My teacher took us to see them. We had 2 or 3 days of ½ hour classes with them from someone from the university. Most kids in my class did not seem too interested in them. But I made the connection between these and what I saw on Star Trek. I became very amazed with them. My best friend at the time, also made that same connection. After the ‘classes’ ended, my friend and I would go to that small room with the TTYs, and use them during recess and after school. We had been using only ‘guest’ accounts that only gave us access to about 10 games, and the BASIC programming language. We wrote our own games in BASIC, and were able to save them on the system. I still have one in a folder. After a few weeks of this we wanted more. My friend’s father worked at a Stanford University. We asked him about where our TTY’s were connected. He told us where, and took us there on a Saturday. It was a large room full of TTYs and video terminals. He left us there alone for several hours. My friend and I thought we were in heaven! We tried to use the video terminals, but got nowhere. But the TTYs we knew how to use. We tried other logins besides ‘Guest’, and found several that worked. We had tried this at our school, but were not able to get in. We logged in on what we thought were interesting accounts, and found that we had much more to explore than we had a school. We discovered that we could make our own personal accounts. We did not know it, but we were hacking this mainframe, and we are only 10 years old, in 1975! The next Monday the accounts we made worked on our school's TTYs. We were amazed! We looked around in that computer for many days. After a couple more weeks the TTYs disappeared. My friend and I were very disappointed. We went back to the computer room at Stanford a couple times, but there were student guards that would not let us in. We were told that the rental time for our school’s TTYs was over. But looking back, I wonder….

 Our next computer encounter was the summer of 1976. My father signed me up for a summer computer class for kids. My same friend was also signed up. We went to this class together for 3 or 4 weeks. It was not too far from our houses in Baron Park (an unincorporated section of Palo Alto at the time.) When we first arrived, we each were introduced to our own computers. They each were detailed with unique colors, and each had a name. Mine was purple and named Mabel, or something similar. They all had people names. There were several young adult helpers, and one older person that ran the class. The older person was teaching us to use a hand device connected to our computers along with keyboard commands to move a triangle around the computer screen to draw shapes. Later we made a device on the ground draw shapes on the large paper upon which it sat. Much later, I learned that I was programming in Smalltalk on an Alto computer, and using Turtle Graphics, at P.A.R.C. I was one of Alan Kay’s experimental kids. This was all great fun! I had my own 12" hard disk that I loaded into my own Alto each morning. My friend and I were about the best in the class, as we were already familiar with computers from the year before. We seemed to get some additional attention. We were often asked to ‘help’ other kids with their projects. This theme would repeat itself several times with me through college. So here I am, about 12 years old in 1976. I am familiar with Basic, Smalltalk, color graphics, using a mouse on screen to select what I want to do, and having my own computer to use. I was very sad when this class ended.

 In early 1980, my father and I were walking along a strip-mall. In one of the windows there were computers on display. A lot of small computers!!! We went in and they were showing a lot of Atari computers and a few Apples. The Ataris were using color TVs showing Star Raiders, and the Apples were using green screens running text programs. That about settled the decision for me, and my father and I walked out with an Atari 800, 16K computer, 410 Program recorder, joysticks, paddles, a couple games, another 8K ram module, and Star Raiders back ordered! As you may already know the early 800s came with a BASIC Cartridge, and the BASIC self teaching guild.

 When we got home, I hooked up the machine, turned it on, and got the Memo Pad screen. ‘What is this?” I was thinking to myself. “Where are the little pictures of what I can do?” I pulled out and loaded the BASIC cartridge, and got the Ready prompt. “No little pictures! What is going on?” Then I opened and read the user’s manual (the one you didn't write) and figured out that this computer, though color, was nothing like what I was used too. I had to yet learn how to use another computer system. What a problem for 16 year old to have in 1981! Well I read the BASIC self teaching guide in about a day. Most of it was already familiar to me. I translated some of my programs from the TTY days to Atari Basic and they worked.

 Over the next few years, I get better and better at programming in BASIC. I had many interests besides computers, and I divided up my time among them. One was hi quality audio equipment. I was able to figure out how to connect my 800 to my stereo. Playing Star Raiders loud through the stereo was really something to experience!

Around ’81 I got an 810 disk drive, and the next year I got a Epson FX-80 printer.

Several years earlier, my father had me tested, and learned that I am dyslectic. I had been going to after school tutoring for years since then. Later, my father sent me to a private, boarding, high school for boys that had a specials skills learning program that could help me overcome my learning difficulties. (Dunn School, Los Olivos, Ca) Two things that convinced me to go were that the school had a computer room, and club, and were starting their first computer classes that year. The second was that they would let me bring my computer, and use it in my dorm room. I did not tell the school that it could play games, only that I used it for ‘programming’.

 When I got the printer, I looked at the large collection of computer magazines I had, and found a word processing program in BASIC. I typed it in and was able to make it work with my printer. I added many ‘features’ to it so it worked the way I liked it to work. I used that to do many reports, and papers for school. Later, my father purchased a full word processing program called Atari Word Processing Program. I used this until the end of high school. I think my use of the computer for most homework highly contributed to my very, very bad handwriting skills. Most people comment that my handwriting looks like a doctor's. Thanks goodness for email!

 When I arrived at this high school, there was only one other person with a computer there. His was a fully decked out TRS-80 model 1 with dual 8” drives 2 5.25” drives, memory expansion and more. With mine being color and played arcade games, connected to a loud stereo, I got a lot more computer attention then he did. This added to entrepreneurial experience, as I later started charging 10 cent per game. This funded my real arcade game play, and let me buy better snacks at the local quicky-mart!

During the first computer class, the teacher soon learned, as you mentioned in the interview, that I knew more about programming than he did. But he did not take that as a problem, but more of an asset. Over those high school years, I became his unofficial teacher’s assistant. He would learn a computer topic, say ‘sorting’ and talk to me about it before class. I would give some helpful tips I may have learned. He would often include them during his lecture. During class programming time, I would be asked to help many others with their work. I usually was able to do the assignments in a few minutes (usually with added capabilities not asked for), so I had the time to help the others. Kids would come to my dorm room after school to ask for help with computer homework (and to play a couple games) Together, the teacher and I were able to get the school to significantly expand it’s computer curriculum, classroom size, and equipment, as well as update the school offices from typewriters to computers.

Kevin Lund