Karl’s Interview, Part III: H2B a Hacker

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3) How did you get involved with computers and web design?
My father purchased our first computer when I was 10. It was a Kaypro 4, and it ran CP/M. It came bundled with Microsoft Basic, and it included a Star Trek Basic game. I was doing fairly poorly at it: I always ran out of points. Then, I was looking at the Basic source code, and I recognized the initial number of points. It was 150 or something. I changed it to 999 everywhere I found it. After that, I was no longer Capt. Kirk — I was Q. No Klingon stood a chance against me.

This was my first experience hacking.

Eventually, the Kaypro was replaced with a Mac SE. This was the computer that I took to college. Although the Mac was cool — there is, of course, no cooler machine than a Mac — Macs of the time were notoriously difficult to hack. I missed out on a lot of BBS action because I could never find the Mac BBSes.

In high school, I took courses in Basic and Pascal, which have given me a better understanding, but I’m no programmer. I’m still mostly a hacker.

Towards the end of college, I ditched the Mac and inherited my dad’s MS/DOS-Windows 3.1 machine. Shortly thereafter, I upgraded to a 586-Windows 95 machine, and I got an internet dial-up account. At about the same time, I was taking a graphic design course and started playing around with designing web pages. Luckily, Tim saved me from creating a great many stupid web designs.

Since then, I’ve focused on web technologies, as most hackers have. That is what got me started using Linux — which is, ironically what brought me back around to the Mac. Apple rocks. I’ve also gotten thoroughly familiar with HTML and XHTML, CSS, and fairly proficient in reading and hacking — though not much with actually creating — JavaScript code.

Sorry, James. You can start reading again now. 😀

Future questions to be answered:
4) Do you think that God is calling you to the priesthood? Tonsured monastic life?
5) You attend a small Orthodox parish. What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of your parish?

Official Rules

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions–each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
6. I will answer reasonable follow up questions if you leave a comment.

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One Response to “Karl’s Interview, Part III: H2B a Hacker”

1. 

   Chris J. Davis Says:
   October 1st, 2003 at 9:36 am

   MacSE Rocks!

   “Now your training is complete, take your mouse and shut down your PC, and take your rightful place by my side!”