[ Thanks to James
Maguire for this link. ]
“He had a TRS-80, an Apple II and one of the first laptops
– a Sharp PC-5000. I’m not sure how his dad could afford
these early techie toys, but Fred lived for them.“He once took the bulky laptop to a church fair because he had
written a program that would calculate the odds of an over and
under game based on historical trends. Fred lost a lot of money
that day, but he certainly attracted a crowd. He swore it was just
a matter of tweaking his code algorithm – he’d be back next
year to rob the church blind.“The next day in gym class, Fred was picked last during team
selections and relentlessly teased by the so-called in-crowd. I
often wonder now if Fred knew back then that most of the teasers
would never be as successful as he would be some day.“Yet, there are many ‘Fred’s’ that work in software development
teams that are still ostracized and misunderstood, even though they
may be taking home a nice salary.”