We convinced our parents to buy a computer because it would help our education when all we really wanted one for was playing computer games. Joke was on us though, because playing computer games at the time usually involved a lot of putzing around and figuring out how stuff worked, ultimately teaching us marketable skills.
I'm envious because my parents heavily restricted my computer use thinking it'd rot my brain or I'd get r*ped. They wanted me reading books, to become a lawyer or a doctor. I always had an affinity for technology. My folks meant well but I think not watering that seed has me in the middle of this lost life.
I'm envious of you. I had no restrictions on technology use, growing up. I dropped out of high school at 16 and spent the next 15 years doing very little of note (with video games consuming the bulk of that time). Now I'm 35, struggling through my undergrad, and surrounded by kids.
I have some ideas about where to go from here but it's not going to be easy. The search for real meaning and really meaningful relationships is ongoing.
I spent so many years yearning. It was so unfair that all of the other kids had Pentium computers at home, and all I had was an old 386. My parent's refused to get me a game console, or cable tv. I was SO BORED, in my desperation, I tried making games in QuickBASIC.
I still think my parent's should not have gone so Amish, but I also don't think I would have developed as a programmer without that.
Not having access to a powerful computer makes you appreciate the finer things in life, like hand-bumming instructions till your inner loop hits a hard deadline.
I had zero games for my VIC-20. It was strictly a BASIC machine. (Later I had a TI-99/4A which had a few.) My dad is a kind of super-polymath, and in the early 80s he bought a computer and learned how to use and program it so he could grind out solutions to mechanical-engineering equations. He saw me become hooked on BASIC and went down to Crazy Eddie's to pick up the VIC for me so I wouldn't bother him on his rather expensive machine.
The personal computer grew up alongside us xennials, and some of us were just drawn to it, even without the promise of video games.
In my case it was a natural progression: "videogames are great!" -> "I have an idea for even better videogame!" -> "how do I make one?" -> "can I tweak this one into being a bit more the way I like it?" -> tinkering around data files -> "I really want to make my own game" -> picking up a programming book at 13 -> a programming career.
Spend a few years putting in 100-hour weeks writing collision detection for this year's Dora the Explorer game -- a typical game industry position -- and you will be thankful for the crud Java app job.
