Likely when I was 9-10 or so (~1986). By that time, TV sets were magical devices able to show images and movements... produced by somebody else. Computers were a miracle able let the programmer (me) control what is shown on a TV/monitor. That fascinated me. I started with a Spectrum owned by a friend, then nagged my parents enough to buy me an Amstrad CPC 6128 with green monitor (which I still own and is sitting on a table here on my left). I learnt BASIC, Logo, music and trigonometry with the user manual of that computer. Years later, I got an IBM PS/2 and found out what a compiler was (a QuickBasic compiler). I started my Computer Science degree the year after and learnt much more interesting stuff: Pascal, C, Java, OCaml... I also signed up on a local Linux User Group and that was the door that opened a job on a Free Software consultancy for me. That's what pays my bills now. Looking back, I'm really happy about who the story went. :-)

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