My 'lightbulb' (pun intended) moment as a kid for getting in to CS was when my dad fished an old (something - it ran DOS, but not windows, and came with the Tur

My 'lightbulb' (pun intended) moment as a kid for getting in to CS was when my dad fished an old (something - it ran DOS, but not windows, and came with the Turbo C Bible) PC out of the skip at work and wired up some 12V filament bulbs to the parallel port - and by writing bytes out to it you could make them flash in pretty patterns. Later I also did the mains relay thing too - but I put them in a metal box. Safety first ;)