Twenty-thirteen

The first computer ID I was assigned was 2013. I was 11 years old and enrolled in the gifted-and-talented program at my junior high school.

“Gifted and talented” apparently meant that we should use computers to solve second-grade math problems. Fortunately for us, the adults running the program knew very little about the system. A couple of friends and I soon found the password and began exploring well beyond the exercises we had been assigned.

That number stuck with me. When 2013 was approaching, seeing it on the calendar brought back the first system that had treated me as a user rather than simply a student looking at a machine.

The important part was not the math software. It was discovering that a computer was something you could investigate. You could learn how it worked, find the boundaries, get past the intended path, and make the machine do something its lesson plan had not anticipated.

That instinct has lasted considerably longer than the password did.

Originally published December 6, 2012. Revised in 2026 to preserve the early-computing story that gave the post its title.