Had a friend in college who taught himself Fortran using the book I had for the course I was taking. He later transferred to a school in the West in his home state. He wrote a program that could bomb out the school's computer which he would put in the in box whenever he got ticked off at the shcool. Later when on to start a software company and did quite well before selling it several years ago.
I spent many a boring night working as a grant-in-aid running the punch cards through the reader, and the finished print-outs and cards back in the bins for students. Old GE Computer actually had wires connecting all the transistors. Looked like colored spaghetti.
