First of all, big thanks Dave for taking the time to write that!

This just totally blows my mind:

"My high school had an IBM 402 Accounting Machine, 082 Sorter, 087 Collator, and 029 Keypunch (I'm sure on the 402, the other model numbers I may be off on)."

That there were computers in hIgh schools at the time in USA. Totally and utterly amazing. I guess that explains quite a bit about why USA became so dominant in computing. When I was in high school in late 80's/early 90's we were using about 8 year old Nokias...