2026-02-09-think-like-that

Twenty Five Years of Computing, Susam Pal

About a week later, the same friend came to my dorm room. He sat down with a grave look on his face and asked, ‘How did you know to do that? How did it occur to you to jump to the reset vector?’ I must have said something like, ‘It just occurred to me. I remembered that detail from the lecture and wanted to try it out.’ He then said, ‘I want to be able to think like that. I come top of the class every semester, but I don’t think the way you do. I would never have thought of taking a small detail like that and testing it myself.’ I replied that I was just curious to see whether what we had learnt actually worked in practice. He responded, ‘And that’s exactly it. It would never occur to me to try something like that. I feel disappointed that I keep coming top of the class, yet I am not curious in the same way you are. I’ve decided I don’t want to top the class anymore. I just want to explore and experiment with what we learn, the way you do.’

That was all he said before getting up and heading back to his dorm room. I didn’t take it very seriously at the time. I couldn’t imagine why someone would willingly give up the accomplishment of coming first every year. But he kept his word. He never topped the class again. He still ranked highly, often within the top ten, but he kept his promise of never finishing first again. To this day, I feel a mix of embarrassment and pride whenever I recall that incident. With a single jump to the processor’s reset entry point, I had somehow inspired someone to step back from academic competition in order to have more fun with learning.