Tesla Coils, FORTRAN, and the egotistical path to my first career

first in a series of major life event/direction choices...

My career really began at a high school science fair. The most interesting thing about it is that there really was no plan on my part. I can look back and reconstruct a series of things that might look like planned efforts, but I did not plan things to develop the way they did. Over 20 years later...I see things in my daily work that still relate back. Sometimes that's a good feeling...sometimes kind of pathetic.

I was a computer and science geek. I used to go to the local Radio Shack and play with their TRS-80 computer. While my mom was next door shopping for groceries, I would stand there at the counter and write little BASIC programs to do things like display a Christmas tree (using ASCII text) with blinking lights, etc. and then leave it running as a kind of free demo. In those early days, nobody at the local Radio Shack knew what to do with this new computer thing. When I was 12 years old, I convinced my parents to buy a used TRS-80--which got me out of the Radio Shack at least!

Around 9th grade, my school had its first science fair. (My school was a tiny rural school.) By that time, my home computer had become "old hat" and I couldn't think of anything really interesting to do with it to be an entry in a science fair. Also, I knew that another student was going to be demo-ing his "Sinclair ZX80" and I wanted something that was more "pure science."

My father had built a prototype analog computer when he was in high school in the 1950s and won the state science fair. But his project did not win at the National competition because, among other things, computers (e.g. ENIAC) were considered technology/engineering, not pure science.

I found an article in a magazine about how to build a "Tesla Coil." What I remember my Dad telling me is that Nicola Tesla was a scientist who had been trying to invent a way to send electricity through the air without wires. That sounded like magic to me and I was excited to build something involving electricity.

My Mom and I went all over town to find the parts I needed, including a neon sign transformer. Then, my Dad and I built a contraption which consisted of a lot of wires, glass plates with aluminum foil between them, and a 2 foot tall piece of PVC pipe, wrapped in wire, with a metal ball on top. When you plugged this thing in, it was instant fireworks. Today, you can see stuff like this for sale at the Shaper Image--encased in globes that you put your hand over harmlessly, but this was some serious oldschool shit here--lightening shooting off the top, sparks flying everywhere, and a loud popping sound as the spark gapped across a 1/4 inch space. If you held a fluorescent light bulb next to it, the light bulb would begin to glow because of the EM field that coil generated.

At the science fair, at night, they turned the lights in the gym off and let me demonstrate this thing for the PTA meeting. It was awesome. That was really one of my best moments. You know, in reality, these things are not hard to build and I did not have to do any research or anything--I was just following the instructions out of Popular Electronics. So today, I don't think a project like that would even qualify for most science fairs, without the person building it demonstrating a lot more scientific effort. But at the time, nobody had ever seen anything like that and it blew their freakin socks off.

The science fair judge worked at a nearby government science/research institution. He told me of a program for high school students that enabled them to meet with a volunteer mentor who basically let us play with cool stuff once a week. There were other program options, including interesting things like aerospace engineering, but I chose the computer option because when we went to the initial orientation, I could see the massive huge computers behind the security glass and I thought this was a great opportunity to get my hands on that stuff, beyond my little TRS-80 at home.

So that's how I ended up learning to code FORTRAN. The mentor let me borrow a manual and I taught myself simple stuff, drawing shapes on the screen, etc. To clear the screen, you actually had to press a button that degaused the big green Textronix monitor. In another year, I did the program again, and tried the aerospace option, but it was not as interesting. We just designed impossible airplanes on a computer screen. But the Fortran programming really gave me a sense of control and power and it was cool to go over there to the facility, past the guard house, through security checkpoints, to these big rooms of computers like something out of Star Trek.

After this program concluded, I got into another high school "enrichment" program--this time a summer educational program. Most of the kids in the program most went to liberal arts type things and took classes or something. But there was an optional, exclusive program for 30-40 students in engineering and science that I signed up for and got into. They assigned us to 6-week internships. My programming experience in Fortran led me to be assigned to a team of scientists who were analyzing the chemical composition of the atmosphere using a refrigerator-sized computer--an HP 1000. My manager/mentor/supervisor had a blackboard full of programming projects--enhancements he wanted to do. They were thrilled as I marched through the list.

In retrospect, it would be easy to say that they kind of "used me." Other kids had more of an "educational" experience, I think. But I was happy and glad to be doing this. I was already kind of a workaholic in training and I really didn't see any point to the forced social activities and extracurricular stuff. I was having a great time learning about computers and it was cool to be working at that facility.

I was fortunate to live nearby, and after the summer program was over, they arranged for me to be hired through a local university for $4/hour to continue my coding work. I came back the following summer as well. After that, I think the funding was no longer available or something, but the people I had worked with were able to find another lab that needed someone like me, so I worked another summer after my freshman year of college, but it was not quite as much fun.

In college, I developed other interests, changed my major, went to law school, etc. but then in 1995, the Internet started to really kick off and (in another blog to be done) I found myself as the systems admin for an HP9000. My technology experience really all relates back to those high school things.

However, something that I always overlooked, was the subtle difference between my reasons for loving the work then, and why that interest has not really sustained me. I know real computer geeks. They are pure of heart; they love the code. For me, the code was interesting, but I have always seen it as a means to an end. I have no patience for real computer science. What I enjoyed was the fact that I impressed people. I was proud of what I had accomplished. I was proud of exceeding expectations.

It was easy. It was easier to do things that no one I knew had ever done before because, being the first, I set the standard. When I look back, I have no illusions about the objective brilliance of my work. I did not create Microsoft. But I did create software programs that were used for years after I left. I made a difference and was appreciated.

In college, I had a lot of adjustments to make, but I realized pretty quickly, after my first serious computer science class, that I was not fitting the mold.

The internet for me briefly (well, 8 years is not so brief, I guess) ignited my interests again but, in a nutshell, easy became boring again.