I am probably one of the older members of the PIC list.
Currently I am 52 years old.

My first computer was a DEC PDP 8L. My first homebrew
computer was an 8008 thing based on the MIL-MOD8 that
I whipped together in the early mid 70's. I wrote the
EPROM based operating system myself, which consisted
of an assembler and disassembler, basic I/O functions
(including a homebrew tape loader at 4800 baud... and this was
BEFORE the Kansas City Standard). Keyboard was homebrew,
as was the video output device (though I did get some good
ideas from Don Lancaster's TVT-II). As time progressed
I homebrewed 8080 Z80 8088 8086 and 80286 computers as well
as 6502 6800 6809 1802 and other computers as well.
I was using a homebrew disk operating system when
Gary Kildall came up with the CP/M Disk Operating System.
I saw the writing on the wall and quickly switched to
what would turn out to be the then industry standard.
I wrote a lot of software for the SOL computer, especially
BIOS routines for all the variant systems that were out
there. It was a fun and magical time. I love my 450 Mhz
Pentium II with 128 Megs of RAM and 10 Gigs of Hard Disk
running Windows 98, but I never had more absolute FUN and
ENJOYMENT as I did in those early days.

Using PICs helps me to convey to my students some of the
joy and excitement that are to be found in "rolling your own".

Fr. Tom McGahee
Electronics Department Head
Don Bosco Technical High School
Paterson, NJ USA