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Just thought I would start up a discussion and ask everyone ... what got you into tech?

For me, I was 4 years old, my parents got me an Apple IIGS, and, in reading the manual, it came with a cheat cheet for booting into a BASIC interpreter with Ctrl + Open Apple + Reset.

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This thread shows common, long-term patterns for how people enter tech: early hands‑on curiosity, formal study, hobbyist electronics, on‑the‑job pivots, and problem-driven learning. Contributions from , , , , and reflect those paths and the same durable ingredients — small projects, iteration, and community — that turn interest into skill.

Practical, evergreen steps that map well onto those paths: pick a single, achievable project and finish it; choose a modern platform that matches the interest (examples include Raspberry Pi or Arduino for hardware); learn version control via Git and publish work (for example on GitHub); and pair project work with a short structured course such as CS50 if deeper theory is needed. Emphasize reading other people’s code, writing clear READMEs, and making incremental improvements — those practices are repeatedly linked to longer careers in tech.

Cautions and durable habits: breadth is tempting but depth in one area wins early opportunities; debugging and communication skills matter as much as language fluency; and public, documented projects serve far better than résumé bullet points. A compact starter checklist that reflects the thread’s examples:

  • choose one small project and scope it tightly
  • create a Git repo and write a clear README
  • add basic tests or logging to make debugging visible
  • document lessons learned and versions of the project
  • share the project publicly and iterate from feedback

This approach complements the personal stories in the thread while translating them into modern, repeatable steps.

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Member Avatar for Reverend Jim

In 1971 (almost before the invention of tech) I was in first year engineering (was going to be chemical) and I sucked at physics labs. A professor let me use his computer account to tinker with BASIC and I ended up writing some code to generate my physics lab results. The next year I switched to computer science. Third best decision of my life (behind getting married and having kids).

Member Avatar for JamesCherrill

My ambitions to do a PhD in Theoretical Physics were destroyed when I discovered the joys of cannabis in 1968. My resulting BSc grade left me looking for a job. IBM offered me one as something called a "trainee programmer" which sounded quite interesting. The rest is history...

Member Avatar for Reverend Jim

You may get a kick out of Don't Hit Save

Member Avatar for pritaeas

I obtained an Acorn Atom when I was about 11. Discovered coding assembly soon after. Interest in coding never faded, got my BSc. in 1997.

Member Avatar for pcbugfixer

Started back in 1992 to 2022.
It was a simple case of being fed up with the yahoos, who kept stuffing up my PC's hardware and software setup and configuration while I was involved in other aspects of the IT industry. It was always someone else's fault and the problems, instead of being fixed, kept getting bigger. So here I am, doing what should have been done in the first place, fixing the problems and not blaming others, that is to say not all of them.

Let's face it, I have yet to find a software program that works 100%. Particularly an operating system that has no bugs in it (on the wish list).

One day, we will find a program publisher with integrity who when they release a new OS or other software application program, it will have been tested, will work at least 99% correctly and won't ask us to pay, to fix their problems.

Regards
Roger Hass / PC-Bug Fixer now in Tanilba Bay NSW 2319 Australia

Member Avatar for rproffitt

Thanks for the great topic.

I took to electronics in the 60's and wrote some code in 1973 for the old GE-210/310 or similar during the last year of high school. Off to college and took some PL/1 and Fortran. Later landed a job in the defense industry which let me explore a lot of embedded design which was fairly new at that time. Fortunate to be on a microprocessor design team and so much more. So many stories over the years but that was my start which was pre-PC so I got to live the entire story of chips to today's computers and more.

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