jimmysong on Nostr: Back when I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with computers. This was back in ...

Back when I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with computers. This was back in the 80's when they weren't that common, but my parents saw that I really liked them, so they got me one for my 9th birthday. It was a Commodore 16, not the 64 which had lots great games, but the 16, which had like 3 games, total.

Having nothing else to do with it, I learned how to program simple programs in line-basic. Stuff like this:

10 print "hello"
20 print "world"
30 goto 10

Honestly, I didn't know many commands, so goto loops were about the most I could do.

My mom somehow found a teacher for me to take computer lessons. She was doing something with networking computers and I guess had graduated with a degree in Computer Science. She was also pregnant.

I took lessons for about 5 months (until my teacher gave birth) where I learned stuff like variables, prompts and so on to make a really basic text interface. It was the first time I felt like I could make something useful with this device.

Anyway, I tell this story because that's what a good mom does. My mom was a recent immigrant who had no idea what computers were, but she found the right teacher for me so I could develop my talents. For all you moms out there, this is one of the best gifts you can give your kids.

Thanks mom.