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Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
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Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#2The local arcade got a Pong machine, then later, a Lunar Lander, and many others as they came out.
I went from playing pinball, to video games, and fell in love with it all. In about the 7th grade I started to design my own games, working out how they'd play and the layout of screens ( on graph paper...lol ) etc...
Later I earned enough cash to get an Apple II+ with all the programming manuals it came with, and spent most of my highschool nights recreating games I'd played and designing new ones in Basic and then eventually 6502 assembly.
Without money for college, I spent my 20's working odd jobs and continued to program on the side. Eventually I got my foot in the door at a national news paper's budding computer department, writing help files and documenting all the existing systems... and worked my way into web development from there.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#3I was always into "computer stuff", but nothing serious where I could earn any money (gaming > programming). So the programming part, where I ended up in the end as software developer, took off very late for me.
I studied computer science, but didn't really know why I did it. I learned about all this programming syntax, solving smaller problems, but it was always difficult for me grasping the bigger picture. But there was one seminar for half a year which open my eyes: Distributed Systems. Suddenly the bigger picture, having webservices, IOT or mobile devices, made so much more sense to me. Everything is connected with an API and not till then the acronym made sense for me. After the seminar I saw this huge potential in programming, because everything could be connected. That's when I started to develop serious interest in programming. If you are interested about it , you can read the whole story over [here](https://www.robinwieruch.de/what-is-an-api-javascript/).
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#4alert(1);
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#5It started with the C64: Games and the ability to quickly create something of your own with BASIC.
Interestingly, with the web it was quite similar: "View > Page Source" and the ability to quickly learn and create something yourself really fascinated me about the web. Accessibility in my opinion was one of the key aspects that really made the web take off.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#6As kids we embarked on a quest across a (small) country, to my cousins house, to collect a copy of Doom 2. We were so excited we took turns holding the floppy discs on the bus home.
When we finally got there and installed it, it ran at about 2 frames per second. My friend didn't let it phase him. He played it in slow motion for weeks in my attic. Shoot. Wait. Wait. Missed. Shoot again. Wait Wait...
I couldn't take it, and eventually learned about autoexec.exe & config.sys, about the different types of memory etc. Trying to get games like this to run.
Even from the outset its been a battle of hate & love :P
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#7Well, I had a grandfather who owned a print shop and had an extra computer. He gave it to my family when I was 9 and then I discovered Runescape and have been hooked on computers ever since. My first real foray into programming was through making mods for a game called Toribash.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#8in the 80s a friend dragged me into a department store where they sold PCs. He typed into one "10 Print Hello; 20 Goto 10" and pressed return. What I saw on the screen seemed like magic to me and I got hooked since then. Later got my own VC20 and spent most of my time with that piece.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#9My uncle was the computer guy of the family. I remember playing on his Amstrad 1640 when I was very young. I always wanted a home computer desperately but my dad never had an interest or saw it useful to encourage my passion for it. It wasn't until my uncle eventually upgraded from his 8086/640KB Amstrad to a Pentium 60 then he gave me the old Amstrad and I was hooked. This was probably about 96/97 so this was already vintage hardware and my attempts to run anything contemporary was frustrating, but that didn't stop me trying to squeeze out every drop of performance from the old beast. I had it for many years and eventually my experiments in trying to get more out of it broke it and it went to the tip. I could probably have repaired it easily just a few years later but I guess that's the tragedy of youth. I'm tempted to buy another 1640 to remember those days but I know it would never be the same.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#10Games