I get asked every so often how I became the Technology Pro.

People want to know if I studied computers in college. I took one class on computers in college. Not a semester long course, but one class as a part of a calculus course I took freshman year.

I got involved with computers when I worked for Radio Shack in the very early 80’s. I sold my first computer by answering the phone and referring the customer to the Radio Shack Computer Center in Fort Worth. Salt Lake didn’t have its own center yet. A few weeks later I received a very large commission check with a note explaining what the customer had purchased.

I didn’t have a clue at that point why a small business would want a computer in the first place. For the most part there really wasn’t any software that would run out of the box.

A few months later, the first customer asked me if I could get them a word processor program. I, a true salesman, said that I would deliver it to them as soon as possible. I called the local Radio Shack Computer Center and asked if they knew what a word processor program was and if they had such a beast. They did and soon so would my customer.

I made arrangements to pick up a copy of Scripsit, Radio Shack’s word processor du jour. I asked the folks at the Computer Center if they could show me how the program worked, so I could teach my customer something when I delivered it. They told me that it had just come in that day and they hadn’t even looked at it. Try it out they told me and tell us what it does.

Having never used a computer for anything but a simple game and a bit of basic programming, I was a bit unnerved.

I cautiously removed the 8″ floppy disk from its packaging and mounted it in the disk drive. After several minutes of whirling the program was loaded into the very generous 64K of ram that the system had. I then did something I rarely ever do these days, I open the manual to learn to use the program.

It took less than an hour for me to learn that word processing was the computer version of a typewriter – on steroids. In no time I was able to center, bold and indent at the click of a – no by using keystrokes and control keys. I also learned to paginate.

I also learned something about myself…. I liked computers and I took to them quickly.

I was hooked, though I wasn’t convinced that the typical small business – remember this was 1980 – would ever get any real benefit from a computer in the office, let alone on every desk.