From Code to Cortex: A Programmer’s Pivot
Tracing a path from 90s tech to modern psychology, where change unlocks new horizons
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away… well, Peterborough in the 90s, I was a programmer in a long-forgotten language called LINC. Unisys sold it as a 4GL. No one really knew what that meant, but it sounded cool at the time. But as computer screens were green and a mouse was something chased by a cat named Tom, what did we know?
For well over a decade Unisys was a powerful force for introducing complex financial systems in banks, building societies, etc. Our biggest concern was ensuring the overnight batch ran ‘overnight’ rather than into the next working day. It seems like a distant time when ‘AI’ was something involving cows and was discussed by John Craven on Countryfile.
Work was good….until it wasn’t. Unisys systems became less popular, LINC was replaced, and the work disappeared. Everyone drifted into other things.
Change happens whether we want it or not.
The only thing we can choose is how we react. Sometimes, we are in denial, angry, or lost. Other times–the best times–we recognise the opportunity.
Skip forward a few thousand years (well it seems like it), and I’m a psychologist (how did that…
