I started in the late 80s. Around the final wave of the "every child must be taught BASIC and programming so they don't get left behind" movement. Sound familia

I started in the late 80s. Around the final wave of the "every child must be taught BASIC and programming so they don't get left behind" movement. Sound familiar? I had the manual that came with my computer and a library that archived copies of Byte and Compute! I mostly re-typed in games and messed around with those. In the 90's I guess computers were pretty normal to me. So when I wanted to make computer games like the ones I was obsessed with I had an idea of what to do. I had a bit of dosh to get some books of my own... mostly tech manuals that came with limited trial versions of Turbo C. I was a teenager and didn't have a lot of money so I learned how to get around that so I could continue making my cheesy space shooters and pizza delivery games. I also had an account on local BBSs before the Internet came. Many helpful people there. Fido mail. One BBS even had an NNTP and email service... but I didn't really use that as much as the books because the turn-around for an answer was still pretty slow. It was often much faster to just look it up in a book or try taking a stab at it yourself and figuring out your own solution. I mostly just kept making things. The Internet just brought an audience for those things beyond my limited circles. I guess mostly you just had to be motivated and a little clever to figure out what you didn't know and solve the problem with good, old thinking and experimentation.