This was back in 1983. My dad (he's had various tech-related jobs, eventually moving in a more logistics direction... but he was never a full-on programmer to my knowledge) bought us a ZX Spectrum 48K home computer. When we first got it, it didn't come with much software (very few games) and I couldn't afford to buy games. It did however, come with an in-built programming language (BASIC) - you were essentially inside a REPL interface as soon as you switched the thing on (after setting it up and plugging it into the TV). It also had a printed manual for the language with lots of well written examples for beginners. My dad encouraged me to give it a go and I got hooked... just changing little bits of the sample programs at first to see what happened - then eventually writing my own stuff. Computer magazines at the time contained printed listings to type in and try - which also was a great boost for ideas and learning
This was back in 1983. My dad (he's had various tech-related jobs, eventually moving in a more logistics direction... but he was never a full-on programmer to my knowledge) bought us a ZX Spectrum 48K home computer. When we first got it, it didn't come with much software (very few games) and I couldn't afford to buy games. It did however, come with an in-built programming language (BASIC) - you were essentially inside a REPL interface as soon as you switched the thing on (after setting it up and plugging it into the TV). It also had a printed manual for the language with lots of well written examples for beginners. My dad encouraged me to give it a go and I got hooked... just changing little bits of the sample programs at first to see what happened - then eventually writing my own stuff. Computer magazines at the time contained printed listings to type in and try - which also was a great boost for ideas and learning
Nice. I started with "logo" and something called MS-DOS (can't remember a thing) cheers