I spent a large portion of my childhood sitting in a corner with a book called Make Your Own Videogames, which taught Basic. I had no computer -- family wasn't doing well back in those days -- but I had a notebook, a pencil, a whole lot of patience, and a cheerful disregard for the notion that the fun part of playing videogames was playing them.

Nobody believes me when I say I had three years programming experience before I first touched a computer...

(I can so relate to not knowing what tag is. In my case, it was Star Wars. There was an immigrant in my high school at Spanish class who asked me about it -- eff if I knew -- so we went to another kid and said "Hey, Li here has never heard of Star Wars and all I know is the name, can you fill him in?" "Wait, you've never seen Star Wars." "Something to do with a Death Star, I know." "What country do YOU come from?!")