Comment 8th grade. TI-83. Bored. (Score 1) 623
In 8th grade I had a TI-83 calculator. I already knew algebra, so I was naturally bored and restless in math class. Being a bit antisocial, I started reading books in class, which my teacher disapproved of. I figured out that if I was messing with my calculator, it looked like I was paying attention and following along, or at least engaged in math. So I discovered that I could write programs. I still had the calculator manual, so I read that to get an overview of the programming commands, of which the most important to me were commands that would write a letter or a pixel to a location onscreen. At first I amused myself by little graphical programs that just drew things on screen, but I discovered that I could make them interactive, so I made increasingly sophisticated games.