In the late seventies, every teenager in Switzerland had two dreams (that is in addition to getting a girlfriend). The first one was to own a 49cc motorcycle. The second one was to own a Sony walkman.

At age 12 my parents had decided that I was old enough to start making my own money and they told me that they would pay half of any thing that I would want to buy, but that I had to make the remaining fifty percent myself. In order to earn some money I helped my father at his office and I also worked at a pharmacy, delivering medicines on my bike. Since riding a motorcycle required to be 14 years of age, my plan was to save the money in advance, to make sure I could buy the coveted Endro moped on my birthday. However, business was much better than expected and I was able to save the money I needed, well in advance. In fact, I had enough money to buy my second dream, the Walkman.

So, I went on my trusted bike, that I had received on my tenth birthday, to the Grand Passage store, with the clear intent to buy the (at the time) hot music device.

That never happened. In order to reach the music section where the product was sold, I had to pass through the office supplies section where calculators were on display. I had seen the TI-58 before and the large number of buttons and capabilities it offered had intrigued me, but it was way too expensive for my limited budget. However, for some reason, on that day it was 50% off. I still see that moment as a pivotal moment in my life. Who knows what would have happened if I had followed my original plan. I will never know, I bought the calculator and never watched back.

I have fond memories of my first programming device. Unlike me however, this calculator did not have persisten memory which made programming long applications a real pain. Despite the problems, it was the device on which I wrote my first game, which I called Mine field.

Shortly after learning to program my Texas Instruments calculator., I joined a computer club. They owned two TRS-80 computers on which I quickly learned Basic.

The TI-58 was nice, but the HP-41 was the rolls-royce of the calculator world. I used it to write many applications and published one of them in a magazine called l'Ordinateur de Poche.

In 1980 I had the opportunity to play with many different computer brands. However, at the time, none matched the graphics capabilities of the Apple II. One of my friends helped me buy an Orange II, a clone produced in Taiwan.