I took an assembly language class on the Motorola 68000 chip once. It was pretty funny the first day of class. I was the last one there because I had a class clear across campus. They were going around the room, “What’s your name, major and have you ever programmed in assembly language before?” When the got to me, I told them I had programmed in COMPASS on Control Data mainframe operating systems for 22 years and wrote diagnostics in microcode assembly language (MICA) on CyberPlus parallel processors and the Joint Stars radar processor for 5 years. This girl sitting in front of me turns around and says, What the **** are you doing in here?” I replied, “For some reason my advisor thought I needed to learn the Motorola chip, but I would be happy if it was Intel.” A big discussion ensued about Motorola vs Intel. Finally this kid (they were all kids compared to me) in the back of the room says, “They still use Motorola chips for printers.” I turned around and said, “Prosecution rests.” The whole class busted out laughing. Those kids treated me like I was some sort of national treasure in that class.
That happened to me once, too. Kids in the hall asked me 1) how I could stand the prof and 2) how I kept up with the work. So I told them.
The best thing about that class was this one memory I have of sitting in the back by a window (I always did that) and seeing this woman walking down the sidewalk with a green foam Statue of Liberty crown on her head. There she was, like it was no big deal. ‘Herself’ (the name I gave the prof) never saw that. I must not have busted out laughing because I remember ‘Herself’s’ voice droning on.