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When I was 9, Dad brought home one of these: http://colinappleby.com/Images/Newbrain.jpg http://colinappleby.com/Images/Newbrain.jpg - it was a Z80 with a built
by danparsonson 13y ago
When I was 9, Dad brought home one of these: http://colinappleby.com/Images/Newbrain.jpg http://colinappleby.com/Images/Newbrain.jpg - it was a Z80 with a built-in BASIC interpreter and that got me started. I graduated to a PC and moved onto Turbo Pascal and then x86 assembler in my spare time, all RTFM and help from my parents and friends, until I got to Uni and finally had internet access (this was in the late 90s), and then I learned a fair amount from online articles and Usenet.
My first professional programming job was when I was about 22, writing C on Unix, then I moved into C# at about 24-25 and have been doing that ever since.
I've had no formal training (that I can think of anyway!) but mainly learned through a combination of intense fascination and a desire to improve my skills for professional advancement.