Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

[Garth Wilson]

You bring up a good point that makes me wonder what percentage of early programmers did it for games.  It's probably pretty high, and I cannot deny that games are a major part of what made the Commodore 64 the highest-selling computer model of all time.  I myself though am not a games person at all, and in fact games have no business being on my computers.  I never did any actual programming until I was in my early 20's, and then it was with calculators, primarily for my interests in amateur radio and stereo, for doing iterative processes that my slide rule was not suitable for.  I started on TI calculators, where going into programming mode involved nothing more than pressing the LRN (Learn) key.  Later I got into HP-41 where it was the PRGM key.  Then it was almost the same thing as doing the steps by hand, but the calculator remembered them to run later, much faster (a lightning-fast ten steps per second, LOL) and without mistakes, even if a program ran all night.  To this day, I have never learned to program a PC, only calculators, and my HP-71 hand-held computers, and microcontrollers, and my home-made workbench computer which I use as kind of a Swiss Army knife of the workbench, in Forth and assembly language.