[taylodl]

I'm 55 and started my career at 18 at a startup building a real-time DOS monitor that was used to build and market several real-time operations monitoring systems being sold to Fortune 500 companies and their equivalents around the world. I had gone to a high school for kids "gifted" in math and science that had the financial backing and research assistance from the Battelle Memorial Institute. That's where I learned about real-time operating systems and had an extremely successful science fair project where I built such a real-time monitor on a C-64, showing the viability of doing "serious" computing on the low-cost 8-bit machines that were becoming extremely popular. The U.S. Navy was definitely interested in this research and I received several cash awards from them.

Does that make me a prodigy? I don't know, I've never felt so. I just keep learning and doing and over the years I've been building larger and more complex systems. Nowadays I spend more time directing the development of several development teams in building solutions and occasionally do some hands-on development just so I retain a familiarity with the challenges facing today's developers.

Anyway, I think I have enough juice left in me to keep going until I'm 67 which is when I plan to retire.