To be fair, I had everything I wanted, which was food, shelter, access to a powerful personal computer, and a lot of old sci-fi books. If other kids had all be

To be fair, I had everything I wanted, which was food, shelter, access to a powerful personal computer, and a lot of old sci-fi books. If other kids had all been equipped like you describe and I'd asked, my parents probably could have scrounged that stuff up for me. I just wore my regular clothes to class and gym class, although in winter I'd change into shorts instead of exercising in jeans. I had a coat that I wore on the walk to school and one pair of shoes. Sometimes I'd have boots, but my family could only afford/only knew about cheap crap boots that'd disintegrate pretty quickly. It blows my mind again and again living in the SF Bay Area nowadays, watching a brand new BMW pull up to Starbucks and unload a bunch of teenagers who proceed to buy $40 worth of coffee and snacks. Those dang kids don't know how good they got it! I grew up near the poverty line in the USA, so I can only imagine what it's like for engineers who grew up in actual poverty in other parts of the world.