I was on the Amiga at that point and even if there was a free compiler it was never on the shareware disk it was supposed to be on and there was usually a bit m

I was on the Amiga at that point and even if there was a free compiler it was never on the shareware disk it was supposed to be on and there was usually a bit missing. I got a copy of Turbo-C (with a book, maybe?) and programmed (on a PC) at work after hours. I, too, learnt assembly mostly because there were a few good free assemblers available.