Now that would've been more interesting. I never got to experiment with printing or connecting anything to my own system, but it would've been fun to make something like what you've described.

Indeed C was a bit intimidating to me at first. I took up a TAFE games programming course in 2008 to learn it, but our teacher was an ex-banker and didn't seem to really have any enthusiasm for games, and there wasn't really any "games programming" in the course. I left after getting mugged in broad daylight on a busy road (Mount Druitt is absolutely atrocious, never going back there again!)