I began my studies at NSIT in September 1974. the program began with
the science basics Physics and Chemistry, and branched out to more
technology specific courses like Mathematics for Electronics and
Computer Science. When you think that this was 1974 digital
computers were in their infancy. although I worked on a computer in
the Navy, it was an analog system that was 8 feet high and 9 feet
wide. It contained drawers and drawers of vacuum tubes and was
designed for one purpose and one purpose only which was to compute
the lead angle for the guns.
Similar to
the NSIT Computer
in 1974
Computer
Punch Card and Paper Tapes
On the other hand the HP digital computer at NSIT that I learned to
program was capable of performing a variety of calculations. The
programs we wrote were simple and were written in the HP Basic
programming language. This introduction to computer
programming spurred a life-long interest in programming that
continues today. Over the years I've developed some competency in
high level languages like Fortran, Pascal, C#, Java and Ada, the
standard military language. I also have some competency in machine
languages like Assembler. However in 1974 I would type simple instructions
on a keyboard in HP Basic and transfer this to Punch Cards.
Once we debugged each section of the program we created a Punch Tape
as shown on the right. For short programs the Punch Cards were fed
directly to the computer's card reader. For longer programs a
Punch Tape was used and fed to the computer's tape reader.
In addition to computer programming there were a variety of
challenging academic courses. To my surprise my efforts were
producing results for the first time in my life. I was getting marks
in the order of 80 to 90 in most of my subjects and was ranked one
of the top students in the class. Given that my high school
experience was that I was always one of the bottom students in the
class this was quite a shock.
Although I experienced academic success with my continuing education
courses I was often focusing only on a single course at a time.
My studies at NSIT was the very first time in my life that I was
successful when studying multiple courses in a full program of
study. It showed me that the learning techniques that I was taught
in the early days of my trades training could be applied to a
full-time academic program. I discuss my challenges with my
struggles with learning under the link on the left titled:
Learning Disabilities.
The NSIT program was twenty-four months
with no summer break. To my surprise in July I received notice that
I was finally accepted into the Navy's commissioning program and
that I was scheduled to immediately travel to Victoria, BC for an
introduction to Royal Roads Military College (RRMC). So instead of
just paying for my NSIT program and letting me finish the final
year, the Navy in their wisdom decided to send me to a four year
military college program. At the time I felt this was unnecessary
since I was eager to get back to the ship so I could get to tell my
boss's boss's boss what to do.
;)
;)
;)
