I wrote my first programs in Basic and then Pascal on a 370 running VM/CMS. It would only be much later than I learned it actually virtualized the entire machine and could run multiple OSs simultaneously. The VAXes that replaced it were in a way a step back, but you couldn't beat the price (in comparison) and it meant that engineering had its own machine instead of sharing with the rest of the company.

Also. Holy acronyms. A soup of abbreviations and details to perform the simplest of operations. I also like how they can quantify the type of productivity developers can expect.

This was still a time when women were prevalent amongst us. Alas, by the time I entered university, women were only common among upper-level students. By the time I completed my studies four years later, the percentage of women in CS/programming had dwindled to the single digits, where it would remain for decades.

Alas, a virtual monoculture has held back CS and programming by not having more women in our ranks.