Indeed, but that's very old. Once upon a time, only high priests of computing were allowed to even touch machines, the peons had to submit their jobs to lower ranking priests in punch card boxes.
There was a brief time when you could get your hands directly on a small to medium size machine, at least in a University environment, by signing up for it (like a handball court), or just hanging around while some computer jock was running some program during his hour or two timeslot.
At least, that’s how I was able to write some simple programs on an IBM 1620 (at one school) and on a CDC 1604 (later, at another).