{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://johnnyreilly.com/posts/dad-didnt-buy-any-games",
  "description": "Growing up in the 80s, John didnt have a computer until his father gave him one but with no games, encouraging him to learn programming.",
  "path": "/posts/dad-didnt-buy-any-games",
  "publishedAt": "2012-05-30T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:yy3apqjlms24kso7ahn7lbmb/site.standard.publication/3mova7c4nho2b",
  "textContent": "Inspired by Scott Hanselman's post on how he got started in programming I thought I'd shared my own tale about how it all began... I grew up the 80's just outside London. For those of you of a different vintage let me paint a picture. These were the days when \"Personal Computers\", as they were then styled, were taking the world by storm. Every house would be equipped with either a ZX Spectrum, a Commodore 64 or an Amstrad CPC. These were 8 bit computers which were generally plugged into the family television and spent a good portion of their time loading games like Target: Renegade from an audio cassette. But not in our house; we didn't have a computer. I remember mournfully pedalling home from friends houses on a number of occasions, glum as I compared my lot with theirs. Whereas my friends would be spending their evenings gleefully battering their keyboards as they thrashed the life out of various end-of-level bosses I was reduced to \\wasting\\ my time reading. That's right Enid Blyton - you were second best in my head. Then one happy day (and it may have been a Christmas present although I'm not certain) our family became the proud possessors of an Amstrad CPC 6128:\n\n\n\nGlory be! I was going to play so many games! I would have such larks! My evenings would be filled with pixelated keyboard related destruction! Hallelujah!! But I was wrong. I had reckoned without my father. For reasons that I've never really got to the bottom of Dad had invested in the computer but not in the games. Whilst I was firmly of the opinion that these 2 went together like Lennon and McCartney he was having none of it. \"You can write your own son\" he intoned and handed over a manual which contained listings for games:\n\nAnd that's where it first began really. I would spend my evenings typing the Locomotive Basic listings for computer games into the family computer. Each time I started I would be filled with great hopes for what might result. Each time I tended to be rewarded with something that looked a bit like this:\n\nI'm not sure that it's possible to learn to program by osmosis but if it is I'm definitely a viable test case. I didn't become an expert Locomotive Basic programmer (was there ever such a thing?) but I did undoubtedly begin my understanding of software.... Thanks Dad!",
  "title": "Dad Didn't Buy Any Games"
}