Sometimes I like to visit the Geocities archive to get that warm toasty feeling of what the web was like 15-20 years ago. I don't know why but I find it really soothing and relaxing, especially since web presentation was so innocent and unpretentious back then. Take the following home page intro I just read: 
 
Welcome to my personal web page. I am using this welcome page as a general opening for the rest of the pages contained herein. 
 
You just cannot argue with that kind of logic! 

 
Most of my mis-spent youth was on one of these (the terminal on the left - the computer itself was kept downtown).

I started on the HP-3000 with the "Award Winning" Image Database.

bapu
I started on the HP-3000 with the "Award Winning" Image Database.

Oh, so you were one of the "Privileged" group, eh? 
 
(The HP-2000 was the highest I ever got to use from '71 on...)

craigb

bapu
I started on the HP-3000 with the "Award Winning" Image Database.

Oh, so you were one of the "Privileged" group, eh? 
 
(The HP-2000 was the highest I ever got to use from '71 on...)

Yup, business application was in Fortran. The first language I learned. The products were called ManMan & FinMan by ASK Computer Systems.

I remember Fortran, but never used it on the HP only IBM.  Along with COBOL (for decades) and even PL/I which was a combination of Fortran and COBOL.  I used to have a long list of languages I could code in, but I've always wished I had done more in C++, that's where all the really fun stuff eventually was programmed in.  Once I had successfully written some financial programs, I tended to be the one to rewrite a lot of accounting and invoicing software.  Bleh... 

craigb
 I tended to be the one to rewrite a lot of accounting and invoicing software.  Bleh... 

I left school at 16 and immediately attended what was called an "ITEC" course in the UK, basically general computing skills. They identified me as one of the "high fliers" and sent me on an apprenticeship with a bespoke software company, with a view to being taught how to code in C++. When I got there I was given a large C++ manual and told to get reading, because pretty soon I would be working on a large payroll program for a national frozen food company. The guy they set me to work with was so enthusiastic about this payroll code that it kind of freaked me out and I quit the next day, having ascertained that writing frozen food payroll code was not what I wanted to be doing at 16. It's a shame I didn't stick it out really because when I eventually learned C and C++ a few years ago I found I really enjoyed it. In fact I kind of preferred C. 

Mooch says C is always the answer.