1980 was a scary time. Nobody knew how to get our economy going. We had 
some (Altair) microcomputer stuff in Otto Schmitt's lab, but I never got 
access because the VietNam vets hogged it. My chem lab had a PDP11, 
pre-Unix, hooked to a teletype, and computer automation was a big push.
I don't think I was important starting the internet, but I never knew 
anybody else pushing it earlier, and I still don't believe it. I believe 
it was like crowd-funding, everybody just pushed their weight and we all 
made something move.

So here we are again, a country in debt, uncertain future. And now 
everything runs on computers. Iran is still in the news. The 
environment, too.

And now we have a truly amazing open source Linux, on all kinds of 
hardware. I sincerely believe we will need better computer skills if we 
hope to compete. Cars, power plants, factories, all industries will need 
computer (Linux) skills.

TCLUG should be where leaders grow.