I started on an Apple II, which I had bought at the very end of

Host: The evening light bled through the old garage window, staining the air a soft, amber orange. Dust motes floated like suspended thoughts above the workbench, where wires, motherboards, and fragments of history lay scattered like fossils of a revolution.

Host: Jack sat hunched over a half-disassembled keyboard, its keys worn smooth by time and touch. A faded Apple II box sat open beside him, its once-proud logo cracked, its edges yellowed by decades of heat and use. Across from him, Jeeny leaned against a cluttered shelf, a small cup of coffee steaming in her hand. The faint smell of solder and nostalgia hung between them — a scent both mechanical and human.

Jeeny: (softly) “Bill Budge once said, ‘I started on an Apple II, which I had bought at the very end of 1978 for half of my annual income. I made $4,500 a year, and I spent half of it on the computer.’”
(She looks at the machine.) “Half his income. Imagine that. That’s not just commitment — that’s faith.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Faith? Maybe just madness. Spending half your income on a toy that could barely draw circles? That’s not faith, Jeeny — that’s obsession.”

Host: The fluorescent light buzzed, flickering once, as though the past itself were trying to answer.

Jeeny: “Maybe obsession is the right word. Every great creation begins that way. Budge wasn’t buying plastic and circuits. He was buying possibility.”

Jack: (smirking) “Possibility doesn’t pay rent. You know what that computer had? 48 kilobytes of RAM. Half a lifetime of savings for less power than a digital watch. It’s insanity.”

Jeeny: “It’s vision. He wasn’t buying what it was — he was buying what it could become. That’s what every pioneer does. They plant a seed no one else believes in and water it with everything they have.”

Host: The rain began to fall outside — steady, rhythmic, like an old tape drive spinning. Jack set down his screwdriver and finally looked at her, his eyes reflecting both skepticism and something quieter — respect, perhaps.

Jack: “You sound like those startup founders who spend their life savings on apps that never launch.”

Jeeny: “Some of them fail. Some of them build worlds. Bill Budge wrote Pinball Construction Set on that Apple II — the first program that let anyone create their own game. You know what that means? He didn’t just use the machine. He democratized it.”

Host: The garage creaked with the weight of her words. Outside, the streetlight flickered, its glow sliding across the dusty Apple logo on the box. It looked like a halo from a dying god.

Jack: “Democratized. Nice word. But you think the world cared? Back then, only hobbyists touched these things. The rest of the world didn’t even understand what a byte was.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what makes it extraordinary. The people who build tomorrow always look insane today.”

Host: She stepped closer, placing her cup on the bench beside him. Her reflection shimmered in the silver of an old floppy disk.

Jeeny: “He wasn’t just building code, Jack. He was building freedom — a new kind of canvas. Half his income for a doorway into another universe. Tell me that’s madness. I call it art.”

Jack: (quietly) “You call everything art.”

Jeeny: “Because art is the only thing that makes sacrifice worth it.”

Host: The rain intensified, drumming against the window in uneven rhythms, like the early beats of an unfinished idea.

Jack: “You know what I think? Budge wasn’t chasing art or freedom. He was chasing power — the kind that comes from creation. He wanted to control something in a world that couldn’t be controlled. That’s what computers gave people — order. Predictability.”

Jeeny: “Order? You think programming is about control? It’s chaos wearing logic’s clothes. You spend hours wrestling with a bug, only to realize the system was teaching you humility the whole time.”

Jack: “So you think he sacrificed half his income for humility?”

Jeeny: “No. For wonder. You don’t invest that much in something unless it touches your soul.”

Host: Her words softened the space around them. Jack stared at the machine — its simple curves, its quiet presence. In its silence, there was something almost holy.

Jack: “You know, my uncle had one of these. He used to stay up till dawn typing lines of code, all to make a pixelated ball bounce across the screen. I never understood it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he did it because, for a moment, he could make something move that wasn’t supposed to. That’s power, Jack — not domination, but creation.”

Host: The light dimmed, leaving only the glow of a small desk lamp and the soft gleam of rain through the glass. Jeeny’s eyes caught that light — bright, alive, unyielding.

Jeeny: “We take technology for granted now. But back then, it wasn’t about consumption. It was about curiosity. People like Budge weren’t users. They were dreamers. They believed a blinking cursor could hold the entire future.”

Jack: “And maybe it did.”

Host: He said it softly, almost as if confessing something. His hand brushed the keyboard — the click of the old plastic key echoing through the small room like a heartbeat from another era.

Jack: “Half a year’s salary. Half his life for a machine no one understood.”

Jeeny: “And from it came worlds.”

Jack: “And now people spend that same amount on a phone they’ll replace in twelve months.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “That’s the difference between investment and indulgence. He was building something that would last longer than him. We’re just scrolling through what others built.”

Host: The rain softened, fading to a whisper. Outside, a car passed, its headlights sweeping briefly through the window, catching on the reflection of Jeeny’s face — thoughtful, fierce, full of quiet belief.

Jack: “You know what scares me, Jeeny?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “That no one’s willing to give up half of anything anymore. Not money. Not comfort. Not time. Everyone wants the future, but no one wants to pay for it.”

Jeeny: (whispering) “Maybe that’s why we stopped inventing and started upgrading.”

Host: The words hung in the air, delicate and true. The old Apple II sat between them, humming faintly — its circuits alive once more, as if hearing their confession.

Jack: “So, what do we do now? Buy another piece of nostalgia and call it meaning?”

Jeeny: “No. We remember what it cost to make meaning in the first place.”

Host: A long silence. Then — a soft whir. The Apple II flickered to life. Its green screen glowed weakly, lines of code appearing like poetry carved in light.

Jeeny: (smiling) “See? Even after all this time, it still works.”

Jack: “Yeah. Guess some things were built to outlive their makers.”

Host: The two stood there, their faces bathed in the eerie emerald glow of early technology — a living relic of human daring. Outside, the rain finally stopped. The sky cleared, and the faint moonlight spilled through the glass, touching the machine as though blessing it.

Host: And in that fragile stillness — between code and memory, circuitry and dream — the old world and the new one seemed to touch.

Host: Perhaps the truest legacy of people like Bill Budge wasn’t the software they wrote,
but the courage to give half of what they had for something that didn’t exist yet —
and to believe that someday, the world would understand why.

Host: The screen flickered once more, filling the room with gentle green light —
and for a moment, the future didn’t feel like progress.
It felt like faith reborn.