My first encounter with a computer

Now that I think about it, in the Gymnasium (a sort of high school where you learn to smoke) I used a computer so exotic, it wasn't even made in the UK. 

It was Norwegian.

I could use it, but I never got to see it. It was a Norsk Data ND-100. I shit you not. Before we found oil, we knew how to build computers. Now, we don't know our asses from our elbows, but that's another story.

I wrote BASIC programs on it. Not normal basic, but NORD-BASIC, launched from the operating system SINTRAN, built when CAPITAL LETTERS WERE COOL -- the seventies.

There was no screen. It was a Teletype -- also of Norwegian design.

The chair, keyboard and a big printer had been welded together into a dark green unit that resembled an iron school desk with a typewriter and the World's Widest Toilet Roll on top. I was mesmerized.

Now, THAT was a COMPUTER. And it wasn't even a computer. The computer was locked away in a computer/atom bomb shelter at some undisclosed location, but I know it was an ND-100.

It spoke to me.

I spoke to it. Tap, tap, tap.

It replied. Clickety-clickety, 'Syntax error'.

When I left, the room was full of paper and I was the happiest boy on the planet. I had seen the Future.

Now I'm all emotional. I'd better stop. Oh, God, a nerd-tear trickles down my cheek ...