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FORMALIT
software project consulting

My first “research discovery” was around third grade, when I realized that multiplication and division by powers of 10 are accomplished by shifting the decimal point the corresponding number of positions to the right and left, respectively. My math teacher arranged a competition between me and Arne, my best friend in the class. Who could do the multiplications and divisions fastest? Arne was handed a pocket calculator, whereas I had no other aid than Mind. This time, Mind beat computer.

I think my math teacher in school had some influence on my later decision to study mathematics, but maybe I would have in any case. I was quite advanced at this stage, and at some point my teachers tried to persuade my parents that I should skip a grade. I felt uncomfortable having to find new friends (some of the prospective class mates were smoking cigarettes, while I was still enjoying playing with model cars). I managed to talk my parents out of it.

Somewhere around seventh grade my dad got me a VIC-20 home computer. Playing games was a lot of fun, especially after we acquired the tape station too, so I didn’t have to type in the program from scratch each time. But before that happened I learned some valuable lessons about programming errors. Later on I got a Commodore 64—Heaven! 64K at my disposal. I remember sitting up all night to implement a sorting routine.

 

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