My answer the same + your in first spot so I'll hop on and answer the question here :-)
What was it that drew you to a life of programming?
Zillion by Sega 1987 japan. I was 5 yrs old at the time and I just had my first ever console (a sega master system!) and Zillion was available for rent in a nearby corner store. I rented it so many times that I probably paid the cartridge 2 or 3 times... I enjoyed this game so much that made me realize I wanted to create cool games like this for everyone to enjoy!
Of course today masterpiece games aren't mariobros like simple 2D scroller anymore and I now learn advanced mathematics to create better software and of course write cool 3D engines for video games :)
Anyway, I had tried Qbasic before but realized it wasn't what I needed by the time I was 6 and my parents knew far less about computers than me at the time... oh and where I lived no internet before 1996 although I owned a bbs for a short period of time in 95. But it was in 94 I had my first power C compiler (with no docs! I had to learn reading the headers at first). Anyway.. All these adventurer with compilers and the back than mysterious world of computer programming was fascinating and gave me alot of knowledge. Like english, DOS and QBasic is what bootstrapped my english learning process :)
In 1996, I also discovered Linux (when I had the internet!) and I was so glad to have a decent alternative to windows 95 back then I spent most of this year learning how to install first slackware then I tried redhat and didn't like and went on to Debian! As soon as I had mastered the basic X stuff and knew how to compile and learned gcc, I discovered about Sam Latinga work on SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) and his C api to write crossplatform games! I spent most of my time during my last 3 years of high school writing simple 2d game engines at night in the basement of my parents house (and playing lots of games of course!)
I added alot of details in the above story to better point out the fact that today with Internet and the games things changed aload :) It would've been a completely different story for me would've had the Internet when I was born! Many here have intense souvenirs of the first couple of times they played doom or dune 2 I'm sure ;) I sure wonder how it would be if I'd be 5yrs old all over again today!
My first computer was a Tandy1000 when I was 3yrs old and I recall the event of my 51/2 floppy drive dying as one of the saddest event in my childhood :) I had bunch of different computers when I was young thanks to my parents for believing in my ideas even knowing nothing at all about video games (my dad idea of a video game stop at a pinball machine methink, well I remember he raced me a few times on my t1000 as the f1 game with the big square ugly joysticks :)! Also, I bought my first computer when I was 11yrs old, it was a 486DX2/66 with a 300mb HD. It was a built in canada clone sold at Wallmark that I had for a bargin price of 1600$!
I built my first pentium clone when I was 12 :-) Of course I capitalized on the fact that at the time I know more about computers than 95% of my smalltown population... Thanks to Linux! I must have done thousands of windose reinstall for individuals who had brand new computers but had no ideas how it worked or how to make it work. I couldn't have done it for this long without having my stable linux distro waiting for me at home! But also the open source community and slashdot and all the hackers out there heh.. thanks!
What pieces of modern software do you think would be a good way to introduce today's kids to the world of computing?
Depends what kind of kids and how old he is. Linux is the best answer I can find too because nomatter how old you are you'll benefit from using a windows free OS :-) But then maybe Mac OS or BSD (or even DOS!) would be just as good... However, I benefited alot from freenode IRC and the linux community there is very helpful. Me if I had a smart kid, when he'd be 12yrs old I'd teach him about FreeBSD, OpenGL and mathematics... but if games or maths aren't his thing then whatfor! I should rather take him fishing or maybe teach him about sport bikes mechanics.
Now if you excuse me, I'm going to play Zillion with DGen sega SDL emu for awhile :-) Happy year 2005 ya'll
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sineer
