Expressions of Manticoran wealth

Daryl wrote:Well he's obviously not Steve Jobs, maybe Bill Gates?

Only two ways I can see for an undergraduate to earn millions. One involves inventing something (software or hardware), and the other is risky.

Taylor Swift earned roughly a million dollars a day in 2015. That was net, not gross, but it was a pretty good year. Not bad for a mere HS grad.

One of my closest friends read one of these posts. And now my mobile is threatening to explode. My friends are having a biiiiig laugh. And one of them rang my sister. Now she's having a big laugh. My sister says "I dare you to tell them the truth. I dare you!"

Well sis. You know not to dare me...

What they are laughing at.
@Sully. Dude, the truth? You can't handle the truth...

I was bored one summer. My Aunt asked me if I wanted to go to work with her. She taught at the local university. I love my Aunt, so, why not. At some point during the day, I came upon the computer lab at my Aunt's suggestion -- I love computers. Cool. I was around 12-yrs-old then. This guy walked up to me wearing a lab coat. "Your Aunt told me you were coming." He showed me around. It was a bustling world inside that lab. College students' heads were about to explode. Some of those heads were very pretty. No one so much as even noticed a little kid. These funny looking cards were all over the floor. Everywhere. It was a mess.

I came to learn that they were punch cards. The old IBM punch cards used to submit computer programs to the mainframe -- called jobs. The students from all sorts of disciplines were trying to meet deadlines. There were words of exasperation. Cuss words. Screaming. Crying. Mostly words a kid like me shouldn't have heard. I hung out in that lab the rest of the day and became a regular for the rest of that summer. Before long the sysop was letting me submit my own jobs.

A Eureka moment happened for me. I had a computer that I wanted a particular Assembler to run on. I needed it desperately. There was one available that I liked but it needed to be recompiled for my comp. If you know anything about compiling software, even by today's standards, you know it's a resource hungry monster. Certainly beyond the capabilities of my computer at 12-yrs-old.

But now I've got use of the university's mainframe!

I asked the sysop if he'd allow me some comp time. Actually, it was more like beg. "Sure kid. You get it ready and I'll run it for you when I have a job opening." I had that thing ready to go in less than a week. It took me that long because I had to keep giving up the Holler terminal to the students if they became full -- I wasn't a student.

On my first run, I got three pages of printout but the mainframe couldn't complete the job. The sysop was stunned. "Kid," (he really called me kid) "where did you learn to code? The mainframe kicked out your program because you had a lot of errors. But they all seem to be minor errors."

If you are familiar with those mainframe beasts of that era, you'd recall that if your program had an error it was

********Stopped********

with this single line description on a page. After waiting anxiously while staring at the clock indicating when those needed results were due for your next class. Incomplete runs could mean a failing grade. Period. I got three pages on my very first run -- unheard of -- with a lot of error codes. The sysop loaned me his manual. I fixed the program and later got a complete run. I had myself a compiled Assembler ready for my computer. It worked!

This brought me to the attention of the sysop. He continued to let me play with the mainframe. In return, I kept the lab cleaned.

One day the lab was hectic. People everywhere. I didn't get any time that day. One girl was typing her cards up. She must have had close to 200 cards. Her stack was about a fifth of mine and I had around 1200. They were out of rubber bands that day. Rubber bands were used to keep the pile of cards together and more importantly IN ORDER. Your job could not be run if the cards were out of order. Even one of them!

The poor girl dropped her cards. She dropped them. All over the floor and all out of order and mixed with some of the discarded ones on the floor. She lost it. Cried her eyes out. She was toast. That was a very beautiful girl to my 12-yr-old eyes. And motivation.

I borrowed the manual to the Holler machine. They were Hollerith Machines named after the cards which was named after Hollerith who invented them. (They were nicknamed Holler machines because when a room of 125 of them were going along with the noise of discussion, screaming, crying, fits, nervous breakdowns and the joyous yells of SUCCESS, you had to holler (yell) to get someone's attention) in the lab.) That same night I found a way to setup the Holler Machine to print distinguishing marks that could later be manually (by hand) reordered. I even later wrote a program that ran on the mainframe that could read the marks and reorder the cards itself. Dropping your cards was no longer a problem. You had to at least find the first 9 cards and order them. After a month or so, I rewrote the code and you didn't even have to find them.

Overnight, I became a hero to those students. They no longer called me kid. They would point me out. I got so many kisses from girls after that that I think I reached puberty much faster.

The code to do that circulated to more campuses than secrets on how to cheat. I never got paid for any of that, but it was no matter. I was just glad the pretty girls (yes and guys) were happy, because then no one would complain that a kid was hanging around the lab. I even got them to stop throwing their typos and eaten cards on the floor. (Bent cards would sometimes get eaten by the Hollerith machine which were discarded on the floor by the students along with mistyped or incorrectly typed cards which would yield syntax errors. Once the whole was punched into the card you couldn't fix it. I later fixed that too. Another story.)

Now for the meat and potatoes. As I said, I didn't get paid for that code, but it brought the sysop to really take notice of me. Shortly after, he approached me about writing some code for a friend of his in California to make some extra money. I said sure. I loved coding, had lots of free time and he promised me as much lab time as I wanted. Frankly, all I wanted was the lab time to be around the mainframe and the pretty girls. I talked to his friend over the phone. What he wanted sounded simple, to me.

Basically, he wanted me to write algorithms for him, or rewrite algorithms to run in as tight a code as possible. I couldn't believe my good fortune! My computer friends and I at the time played this game. It was like "Name That Tune."

"I can write that program in 25 lines of code," would always be the opening bid.

"I can write it in 20 lines."
"I can do it in 15." "Ok then, write that code!"

"I always won that game." And now someone was offering to pay me. When the first check arrived at my house my mother was livid. She didn't know what to think. Checks for thousands of dollars to a 12-yr-old boy? My mother questioned me like the Spanish Inquisition. Then another came. And another. And another. And another. One check came one day for three months of coding that sent my mother into shock. A lawyer was contacted, etc. etc., to make it legal.

@Sully.

By the end of that same year, those checks had totalled almost a quarter of a million dollars from various companies in California. Word of mouth spread and by the time I graduated High school, Sully, I had made over $750,000. Which put me almost half way to making the two million before graduating college that you find so hard to believe. When I attended college, my free time was at a minimum. So I only took a few projects here and there, but the bigger projects that paid well. Very well. So yes, my second million had been made well before completing my undergrad degree. All of that code was sold. If I would have been really smart, I would have licensed it.

Upon graduating, I was inundated with offers to go to California. I had a Civil Engineering degree and I thought California would be a great place to start. I accepted work writing algorithms in the interim. I was to meet the guy who gave me my start. I landed in Silicon Valley and I was hooked. A fast paced life in those days. Money fell from the sky. Lots of money if you could code -- efficiently. And I knew several languages by then, fluently. From Basic, to Fortran, Fortran IV, C, Assembler and what was to make me very successful... LISP.

I worked for a subsidiary of Microsoft and had amassed a few stocks. In 1999, Microsoft's stocks hit an all time high. I haven't had to work since. And it all started for me, innocently enough, as a little kid. That story is what motivated my genius of a 12-yr-old niece.

The aforementioned Volvo I mentioned upstream was purchased with that money at 16.


A lot of people became rich working in Silicon Valley, and continue to do so. Many people got rich off of Microsoft stock too.

I continue to consult regarding the writing of algorithms from time to time. It is a passion.

You don't believe it. Fine. I can't fault you, because neither did my parents.

My brothers and sisters certainly believed it because I shared much of it with them. I bought my sisters everything. Right sis?

.

kzt wrote:

Sully wrote:
Really curious to see your definition of multi-millionaire if you can write those two sentences consecutively and honestly.

(And how you made a couple million before graduating college. As well as what currency we're talking. )

Contrary to what cthia thinks, college degrees are not essential for financial success.

Sure makes it easier, though.

Sully wrote:But I only brought up college because of Cthia's previous post mentioning it.

In my circle of friends, < 100 million dollars is not multi-millionaire status, simply millionaire.

I never implied that a college degree was necessary for success. That would be silly of me, since I met several rich people who didn't even graduate High School or was at least able to manage a GED!

As a matter of fact, I know a farmer who is a millionaire who never completed junior high. I dated his daughter in college.

I hope you never let your real name escape online - think of all the begging letters!
Cheers
John

Fox2! wrote:

ncwolf said:
I guess the closest we've seen to the struggling class is the steader family (from Grayson) in the last Honorverse collection who had a feckless youth as family head, two girls making a living as strippers, and a midship(wo)man -- sorry y'all it's late, and I can't find it on my computer.

The Grayson steader family with the irresponsible teenager as pater families, cousins working as strippers on one of the Blackbird habitats, and the newly minted Ensign was in Obligated Service.

Yes, that sounds right. Thanks.

Sure, John Carter carved his way across Mars two or three times on his way to fictional fame and fortune because some pretty girl told him he wasn't fit to brush her grandmother's cat's teeth. Cthia sees some pretty girl cry and he gets rich trying to prevent it happening again! ; )

(And the punch cards weren't numbered before that???)

ncwolf wrote:Sure, John Carter carved his way across Mars two or three times on his way to fictional fame and fortune because some pretty girl told him he wasn't fit to brush her grandmother's cat's teeth. Cthia sees some pretty girl cry and he gets rich trying to prevent it happening again! ; )

(And the punch cards weren't numbered before that???)

No, they were not numbered. I thought I made that clear. And writing on them to number them was discouraged, because students would then use PENCIL if there was no pen or proper marker available. The lead particles would cause problems for the computer's feeder.

Cthia got rich because of his mad programming skills. His intense desire to acquire a *particular Assembler for his personal computer. His willingness to land his spaceship on another planet in an alien valley, AND HIS MAD MAD MAD MAD PROGRAMMING SKILLS!

* The particular ASSEMBLER that I coveted almost mirrored the capabilities of one developed by a third party for the Atari for its 6502 CPU called MONKEY WRENCH (w/o the limitations) and with many more commands. You couldn't just place that kind of power into the hands of a little kid -- Pinky!

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v1n1/softwarereviews.html

A pretty girl is to be given credit, but it is the pretty girl that cthia has always thanked - his Aunt. Who remains beautiful even in her advanced age.

cthia wrote:

ncwolf wrote:Sure, John Carter carved his way across Mars two or three times on his way to fictional fame and fortune because some pretty girl told him he wasn't fit to brush her grandmother's cat's teeth. Cthia sees some pretty girl cry and he gets rich trying to prevent it happening again! ; )

(And the punch cards weren't numbered before that???)

No, they were not numbered. I thought I made that clear. And writing on them to number them was discouraged, because students would then use PENCIL if there was no pen or proper marker available. The lead particles would cause problems for the computer's feeder.

Cthia got rich because of his mad programming skills. His intense desire to acquire a *particular Assembler for his personal computer. His willingness to land his spaceship on another planet in an alien valley, AND HIS MAD MAD MAD MAD PROGRAMMING SKILLS!

* The particular ASSEMBLER that I coveted almost mirrored the capabilities of one developed by a third party for the Atari for its 6502 CPU called MONKEY WRENCH (w/o the limitations) and with many more commands. You couldn't just place that kind of power into the hands of a little kid -- Pinky!

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v1n1/softwarereviews.html

A pretty girl is to be given credit, but it is the pretty girl that cthia has always thanked - his Aunt. Who remains beautiful even in her advanced age.

You *were* clear about the punch cards (and I didn't think about each being responsible for numbering their own cards), I was just a little amazed that it hadn't been done before.

As for the pretty girl, well, I was stretching for a metaphor and I had just gotten through listening to the audio version of Princess of Mars!

And Assembler {[(shudder)]}!

Wait, run the spaceship bit by me again--were *you* being metaphorical?

cthia wrote:

ncwolf wrote:Sure, John Carter carved his way across Mars two or three times on his way to fictional fame and fortune because some pretty girl told him he wasn't fit to brush her grandmother's cat's teeth. Cthia sees some pretty girl cry and he gets rich trying to prevent it happening again! ; )

(And the punch cards weren't numbered before that???)

No, they were not numbered. I thought I made that clear. And writing on them to number them was discouraged, because students would then use PENCIL if there was no pen or proper marker available. The lead particles would cause problems for the computer's feeder.

Cthia got rich because of his mad programming skills. His intense desire to acquire a *particular Assembler for his personal computer. His willingness to land his spaceship on another planet in an alien valley, AND HIS MAD MAD MAD MAD PROGRAMMING SKILLS!

* The particular ASSEMBLER that I coveted almost mirrored the capabilities of one developed by a third party for the Atari for its 6502 CPU called MONKEY WRENCH (w/o the limitations) and with many more commands. You couldn't just place that kind of power into the hands of a little kid -- Pinky!

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v1n1/softwarereviews.html

A pretty girl is to be given credit, but it is the pretty girl that cthia has always thanked - his Aunt. Who remains beautiful even in her advanced age.

ncwolf wrote:You *were* clear about the punch cards (and I didn't think about each being responsible for numbering their own cards), I was just a little amazed that it hadn't been done before.

As for the pretty girl, well, I was stretching for a metaphor and I had just gotten through listening to the audio version of Princess of Mars!

And Assembler {[(shudder)]}!

Wait, run the spaceship bit by me again--were *you* being metaphorical?

Even if the cards came pre-numbered, it would have caused more problems than it solved. Cards were borrowed from containers all over the lab as one container would "run out." So theoretically, you could have ended up with several "#215" neither of which was numerically "215" in your program count.

Having the students number their own cards was a good idea on paper, but it neglected the human element. When you are busy coding, your mind is on your program's logic, syntax and the attention required by the keypuncher. As you completed a card, you placed it upside down on your growing stack of cards. If people numbered them, they tended to number them on the front - where the program code can readily be seen. Which made you constantly have to turn the last card back over to check the last number where you left off. It was just a hassle and an extra time consuming task that just wasn't practical - especially if you didn't have a proper pen or marker. The lab couldn't keep proper pens or markers because the students would inadvertently take them. Some students did take the time to number a stack of cards before they used them. But you never knew how many cards you'd actually end up needing. So oftentimes there were cards left unused that were already numberered that could confuse the next user. And on and on. No method actually took. Most students just never bothered and relied on chance, rotten luck and the good ol' rubber band. I've known girls to sell rubber bands for a dollar off of their ponytails when they ran out. They were that valuable.

"RUBBER BAND? DOES ANYONE HAVE A RUBBER BAND?!" Was a phrase commonly hollered in the lab!

My freshman year of college I gave my High School Volvo away and bought a BMW. I gave that away after graduating, right before splitting for California. I purchased a Porsche to enjoy the cross country drive from North Carolina. My sisters called it a spaceship because it had more buttons than a 747 and was probably just as fast. The buttons had buttons and those buttons had switches and those switches had levers.

I call Silicon Valley an alien planet because it was unlike anything I'd ever seen. There is a lifestyle there that I imagine could prepare you for any kind of alien economics in the Honorverse. People would sometimes borrow money and repay you with stocks or the title to a car or whatever... Businesses would start up and die in a few months.

So, metaphorically -- or literally depending on your location -- I landed my spaceship in an alien Silicon Valley on an alien planet.

The particular ASSEMBLER I used should be featured in a Museum of Fine Art.

Cthia, actually, I do believe you because my Dad has a very similar story, just with smaller numbers. Honestly, Silicon Valley was my guess-something else would've been a more interesting story. I'm disappointed in you.

The currency joke was because my dad spent a lot of time in latin america and old-soviet republics. He'd make jokes like, "I love being in ___, it makes me feel like a billionaire.'.

I sure wish I could use that definition of 'multi-millionaire' though.

But to be completely honest, I would've cashed out and done artsy things long before getting to that point.