Thanks to delays from cars, the Air Force, more cars, girls, racing and more girlfriends I got a late start in finishing up university. One of my professors in Santa Barbara was involved in the original designs of the Internet, having worked for the DoD. He told us tall tales of what was to come.

In my last and senior year, PCs were just arriving and the lab had some Trash 80s and one Apple. Because the Apple was in high demand many of the geek-guys were playing multi-user Star Trek games, but to me it looked like playing good-old Battleship as you'd feed in coordinates and then waited to see what happened. By that time, I was much more interested in music, wine, cheese and playing Strip Battleship (the plastic, tabletop version) with my girlfriend.

Like Richard, I played a bit in bulletin boards and in various chat rooms that came later. But what really got my attention was when there was a bulletin board type program, I think sponsored by the FAA but run by a third party, where you could calculate a new flight plan in about 15 minutes instead of, at best, two hours; previously needing charts, calculations, researching airports in a binder, etc. It even had a nice 1/2 page printout that you could clip into the thigh board. Now that was progress!