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I had a similar upbringing. Video games and TV were blamed for bringing down our grades, and were extremely restricted. We never had a console. Dad would come h

I had a similar upbringing. Video games and TV were blamed for bringing down our grades, and were extremely restricted. We never had a console. Dad would come home and put his hand on the TV to see if it was warm, and ground us if it was. I was allowed to spend time on the computer if I was writing BASIC or playing something "educational" (like Carmen SanDiego, or Oregon Trail). The occasional Sierra game slipped in. The first real game machine I was allowed was a Game Boy, when I was 12. For better or worse, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have become a coder if I'd had access to lots of games in elementary school.

ianbutler 4y ago
It's funny how different circumstances shape people so differently. I had access to a lot of video games and I decided I wanted to make them as a kid and that started my programming experience around 11-12. If I didn't have video games I probably wouldn't have become a programmer!
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  Same for me and most of my high school friends. We were all dorks that loved video games and most of us ended up going into technical jobs largely because of video games.
- noduerme 4y ago
  Interesting, isn't it? When I was around 10 I had after school access to a lab full of Mac Classics, which had The Manhole installed, and it was about that age that my two best friends and I started working on our first "games" in HyperCard and screensavers in Perl. They were also both banned from having consoles at home, which was a reason we became friends... other kids would go home but we wanted to stay at school late because it was where we had access to Macs. All three of us ended up adjacent to the game industry at one point or another. I remember going to other kids' houses and being blown away by (and terrible at) NES games. Something like Mario 2 seemed impossible to imagine programming for me at the time. Something like The Manhole, though, or even "Glider" could reveal its hypertalk mechanics. So maybe that had more to do with where I went than trying to do text adventures in BASIC on an IBM PC at home.

ianbutler 4y ago

It's funny how different circumstances shape people so differently. I had access to a lot of video games and I decided I wanted to make them as a kid and that started my programming experience around 11-12. If I didn't have video games I probably wouldn't have become a programmer!

bcrosby95 4y ago
Same for me and most of my high school friends. We were all dorks that loved video games and most of us ended up going into technical jobs largely because of video games.
noduerme 4y ago
Interesting, isn't it? When I was around 10 I had after school access to a lab full of Mac Classics, which had The Manhole installed, and it was about that age that my two best friends and I started working on our first "games" in HyperCard and screensavers in Perl. They were also both banned from having consoles at home, which was a reason we became friends... other kids would go home but we wanted to stay at school late because it was where we had access to Macs. All three of us ended up adjacent to the game industry at one point or another. I remember going to other kids' houses and being blown away by (and terrible at) NES games. Something like Mario 2 seemed impossible to imagine programming for me at the time. Something like The Manhole, though, or even "Glider" could reveal its hypertalk mechanics. So maybe that had more to do with where I went than trying to do text adventures in BASIC on an IBM PC at home.