
How Richard Garriott got started in games - lnguyen
https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/9/15/16304980/how-richard-garriott-got-started-in-games
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et-al
Lots of credit goes to the Garriott's high school administrators for being
supportive:

> When I got back to Houston, I told the faculty, 'I want to continue working
> on this machine. There is no curriculum [for computer programming]. What I
> would like is your permission to, instead of taking a foreign language,
> please consider BASIC my foreign language.'"

> The faculty gave him its blessing. Over his junior and senior years,
> Garriott and a few other students with permission to tailor their curriculum
> to their strengths embarked on self-guided journeys.

And later on, the school president's office let him use the new Apple
computer. Granted, times were different and records may not have been
computerised, so there was no threat of changing grades and HACKING.

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gavanwoolery
Garriott, and more specifically, the Ultimas, are the sole reasons I became a
programmer. I first played Ultima 5 on a monochrome C64 monitor. Seeing the
technological leaps up until the 8th sequel was mind-blowing to a younger me.
There was something there that sadly will never be replicated. The lack of an
internet connection meant there was nothing available other than a box, a
manual, and a map to feed the imagination. I was even further disconnected
from the world given I grew up in the countryside where neighbors were scarce.

I remember me and my brothers all huddling around the screen on rainy days,
the four of us trying to assume the identities of the default party members -
it literally felt like looking into a portal to another world.

~~~
mentos
It was an emulator for Ultima Online called RunUO that ignited my passion for
game development. The ability to alter a few lines of code and see that
reflected in the game was so damn exciting. Happy to say 15 years later
working on my latest game in UE4 that feeling still endures. Thank you Richard
Garriott and the RunUO team ;)

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byteCoder
I suspect that Richard's first computer was an Apple ][+, not an Apple //e (as
claimed by the article), as Ultima existed (published 1981) well before the
Apple //e was released (1983).

~~~
CamperBob2
Correct, it absolutely would not have been a //e. Not that it really makes a
difference, but still, that was a weird thing for an otherwise-decent article
(or rather, book excerpt) to get wrong.

His first Apple, circa 1979, was probably an original Apple II with a language
card, equivalent to the II+ that came out in mid-year.

Interesting to note that it was so expensive that even a senior NASA
astronaut, probably a GS-13, had to split the cost with his son.

