VAX Assembly
I walked into the Kirkbride Widener CS lab one day as a second semester freshman, nej, maybe first semester sophomore. Brendan was staring at a VT101 with 4 or 5 VAX/VMS manuals, 4 inch binders each, laying open around him. With a mean, sarcastic voice he looked up and said something like “history majors have nothing on me”. Before then I had set myself to try to survive college, as my grades where less then great.
It took a few day, maybe a few weeks, but something clicked. College isn’t meant to be survived. I remember teaching myself Applesoft Basic on the Apple ][+ as a preteen. On the Apple ][+ Beagle Bros kept me giggling and kept the docs fun to read. With help of Brendan, el at, I made it fun. It all started with a stack of VAX assembly language manuals piled around Mr. Kehoe. It ended with me getting a most improved student award, then watching him leave Widener without his deserved degree.
