Posts

After-school Computer Science Course

After completing the mandatory education in Italy in the 70′ 1elementary school (6-11 years old), and middle school (11-14 years old), I chose to continue my scientific education and attended the Liceo Scientifico Statale Plinio Seniore high school in Rome, IT (14-19 years old).

In 1982, at my second year there, they started a “Corso extrascolastico di informatica”, which I attended once a week, on Wednesdays, after school.

A professional programmer, which worked at a nearby company, taught me how to program in the BASIC language.

My first computer was the Commodore 64

I got my first computer, a Commodore 64, as a gift from my grandmother, Margherita. She paid for it 600,000 lire. 1300 euro in 1982 are equivalent to 1,176.24 euro in 2021

I used it to type and run my first computer program in BASIC, which I had learned at the after-school course I was attending.

It was a Maths program, which I had been hand-writing on paper and running step-by-step in my mind for some months. After typing it in, it ran flawlessly. I was very proud.