Re:Ask HN: What Got You into CS?
by stevekemp on Thursday January 05, 2023 @08:20AM
(#34259201)
Was given a ZX Spectrum, at age 11. Unfortunately the cassette-player was broken, so we couldn't load any games from tape.
That meant I spent the Christmas period reading the manual, which explained how to write BASIC and from there I taught myself Z80 assembly-language.
Initially my interest was in hacking games, both to remove the copy-protection, and to get more lives/energy/time.
After that I moved to PCs and started programming for a living, before moving into more formal education and later jumping from development to sysadmin.
That meant I spent the Christmas period reading the manual, which explained how to write BASIC and from there I taught myself Z80 assembly-language.
Initially my interest was in hacking games, both to remove the copy-protection, and to get more lives/energy/time.
After that I moved to PCs and started programming for a living, before moving into more formal education and later jumping from development to sysadmin.