Sam Varghese
Thursday, 29 October 2009 06:03
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Hodge was born in Nowra, New South Wales. His father worked for the Royal Australian Navy and the family moved to South Australia before he started his schooling. Both his parents are originally from that state.
"A love of computers appeared in about 1980," he says. "The school's science teacher, Peter Stewart, borrowed an Apple II+ from the SA Department of Education Angle Park Computer Centre. I spent many lunch hours learning all I could. I was hooked.
"In 1981 my Dad bought a TRS-80 Model I as my first personal computer.
"Peter Stewart (Lock Area School) and Rob Sharp (Immanuel College, Novar Gardens) are two very important teachers in my early years: they directed me to the path (in which) I now find myself.
"My Dad, recognising I was not going to be the fifth generation farmer (further research showed that farmers extended back at least another two generations), invested in me. I really thank him for his foresight."
He has a fascination with punch cards and printouts.
"I vaguely recall getting used punch cards and used 132-column, sheet fed paper in 1974 as 'scrap paper' when very young. I think these were the discarded outputs from punchcard computer jobs run by the Year 10 students. It looked interesting. It took a further 5 years before personal computers reached the rural school.
For a while in high school, he was known as a stud. "In my Year 11 end-of-year school magazine, some of my school friends called me 'a stud'. This only lasted one year at school," he says. "As a gentleman, I will comment no further on this matter."
Once he was out of school, he spent a few years working for an Apple reseller, now closed, called Random Access. He worked through weekends, learning and enjoying the associated fun of being of legal drinking age.
He met Avril, the woman who would become his wife, at this company. They have been married for 20 years and have one son, Liam, whom Hodge describes as a budding geek.
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