In high school, I was set on studying biology. Then, in 1976, a buddy said, “Hey, you gotta see what’s in the third-floor utility closet.”

I expected a prank. Instead, I found a teletype. A handset modem. And a pay phone. You dropped in some quarters, dialed a number, and connected to an HP 2000C mini computer at a high school across town.

As members of the computer club, we had access. But for what? Games, obviously. Star Trek 1971 and Adventure. I spent a month after school playing nothing but Star Trek. It was slow, just 10 characters a second. Printing the map took a full minute. But my imagination filled in the blanks.

Then I asked, “What else can we do?”

“Learn programming.”

And that was it. Biology got sidelined. Computers took over.

Who knew a little closet could change everything?

(Postscript: I wish I had kept a printout. But Star Trek 1971 is still available. You can now play it in your browser)