Sometime around 1986 or 1987 my dad picked up a used Commodore 128 from a guy he worked with. I was in 3rd grade. I had only the most passing familiarity with computers at that point as the only ones I'd used were the C64 in our school classroom (only rarely were we allowed to use it since there was one computer and several students) and some Tandy or similar at the "rich kid's" house down the street.

As a typical nerdy kid interested in sci-fi, robots, and computers, I was immediately obsessed. The guy who sold us the computer must have been into the BBS scene at the time because he included a box of 20-30 floppies labelled with hand-printed stickers and loaded up with all kinds of weird software with cool music and graphics when you started them up. I'd later learn that this was my unwitting introduction to crack intros and pirated software.

Since few of these disks were "official", there was only documentation for a handful of programs. I spent the next couple of years slowly discovering and experimenting with all of the programs on these disks as I tried to figure out what they all were. Some were clearly games and some seemed opaque at first but later became an obsession (Zork and several other Infocom titles).

The package also included the big book o' Commodore BASIC commands that was included with the retail machine. Between that, BASIC programs from magazines, and figuring out how to LIST a loaded BASIC program, I spent the next several years teaching myself the, er, basics and occasionally trying to "hack" some of the games to give myself way more gold/health/experience by changing different values or POKEing inappropriate numbers in shameful places.

Unfortunately, even though I spent hours in that unique ADHD realm known as hyperfocus, writing programs that drew pictures, played music, or simulated an interactive chat (really not that cool, just picking numbers that corresponded to your reply and following a path, choose-your-own-adventure style), my folks also told me to spend less time on the computer. I distinctly recall my well-intentioned stepmother telling me I didn't want to become "a computer nerd".

I don't know if they realized how lucrative that stuff could've become had I stuck with it. Either way, as I got older, barring a brief unit on BASIC in a high school computer class (which I aced since I'd pretty much learned it all in grade school), I lost track of programming. I've tried learning more modern languages since then but for whatever reason, the willpower and interest needed to sit down and code just isn't with me anymore.

Maybe it's the sense of discovery that's missing in lessons. I still enjoy learning new software when I need it to accomplish a particular task so maybe I need to leverage that if I want to really get back into programming, even as a hobbyist. Learning to use a tool in order to accomplish a particular task is a lot more engaging that learning to use a tool just to learn it.

Either way, I credit my early experiences with that Commodore for my continuing love of computers and using them to do fun and interesting things. I may not be a programmer but I'm not afraid to read documentation and learn how things work. I love trying out new features or discovering old ones. My interest in that old SID chip music taught me about MIDI and the C128's graphic commands evolved into my current hobby of creating and displaying digital art and interactive graphics.

We kept that C128 as our sole home computer until we eventually got a cheap 386 somewhere in the mid/late 1990's. Never did get that Amiga I wanted but for me, Commodore is the root of my tech-nostalgia and the starting point for many of my current interests and skills.