The Holy Grail

for something which seemed a more mainstream career option but which might also let him work on computers. ‘Well, accounting maybe?’

‘Oh yes, that’s much better,’ she said.

‘You can probably even get into a university, and study accounting there. I’m sure you will enjoy it,’ she added, smiling as she closed his file.

The borrowed computers were, in Electron’s opinion, one of the few good things about school. He did reasonably well at school, but only because it didn’t take much effort. Teachers consistently told his father that Electron was underachieving and that he distracted the other students in class. For the most part, the criticism was just low-level noise. Occasionally, however, Electron had more serious run-ins with his teachers. Some thought he was gifted. Others thought the freckle-faced, Irish-looking boy who helped his friends set fire to textbooks at the back of the class was nothing but a smart alec.

When he was sixteen, Electron bought his own computer. He used it to crack software protection, just as Par had done. The Apple was soon replaced by a more powerful Amiga with a 20 megabyte IBM compatible sidecar. The computers lived, in succession, on one of the two desks in his bedroom. The second desk, for his school work, was usually piled high with untouched assignments.

The most striking aspect of Electron’s room was the ream after ream of dot matrix computer print-out which littered the floor. Standing at almost any point in the simply furnished room, someone could reach out and grab at least one pile of print-outs, most of which contained either usernames and pass- words or printed computer program code. In between the piles of print-outs, were T-shirts, jeans, sneakers and books on the floor. It was impossible to walk across Electron’s room without stepping on something.

The turning point for Electron was the purchase of a second-hand 300 baud modem in 1986. Overnight, the modem transformed Electron’s love of the computer into an obsession.