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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ErikUden@mastodon.de ("Erik Uden 🚩") wrote:
On September 3rd 2018 #OTD the first person who has ever introduced me to technology, Ahrend Ihnen, has sadly passed away.
He meant a lot to me, because when I was in 5th grade and just began at my new school, the Ulrichsgymnasium Norden, Ahrend Ihnen, despite own club and school rules advising otherwise, was okay with me joining the Computer Club at this young age, otherwise also known as « Computer Steuern Maschinen » or CSM / Computer Control Machines.
There, at the age of 10 or 11, I was first introduced to the basics of electronic circuits (diodes, transistors, cables, + and -, etc.) as well as the basics of programming on computers from the 90s running GWBasic on floppy discs :computerfairies:. Yes, my first programming language was basic on a floppy disk storing a few hundred kilobytes.
From then I was part of the club until at least 10th grade, which is when I moved to San Jose, California for a year, where I continued such work in the Robotics Club of Willow Glen High School in 2019 - 2020.
Of course many things that began my interests in science and technology can easily be traced back to my father, who has done scientific experiments with me and my sister as soon as I could walk, however a substantial amount of credit ought to be given to Ahrend Ihnen whom I hold dearly in my memories to this day - I am very convinced that without him and his perseverance with explaining the most fundamental physical and IT concepts to me, which I had a very hard time understanding, without this help he provided, I would not be running this Mastodon instance, or any web services here today.
I believe he would be proud to see what has became of the many people he educated, tutored, and mentored.
If you know a person like Mr. Ihnen in your life, feel free to comment your thoughts about them. I don't want him and people like him to ever be forgotten!