[2pointsomone]

Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.

[umeshunni]

This hits close to home. I grew up in Saudi in the 90s and had a very similar experience - stared out on an Atari 65XE, moved on to a 486 with QBasic, then QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal and later Visual Basic and VC++ (with a detour to Borland C++).

The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems.

Your note on the shady stores reminds me of doing the same - in the pre-internet/warez era, the only place to get software in the Gulf was in shady malls selling floppies (and later CDs) chock full with pirated software for 10 riyals/dirhams

[Jugurtha]

>The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems.

That's hilarious. I remember I was pissed off: why certain files do stuff and are games and all. How do they do that!

So I created a new .TXT file and changed its extension to .COM and tried to execute it. Then to .EXE.

It didn't work. I don't know what I expected back then, for it to magically do something cool I suppose.

The executables came when I got Visual BASIC for DOS. Wow! You could also make forms with buttons!

It was in on a CD that had a bunch of software on it that came with .NFO files I'd read and wonder "what was that BBS stuff they were talking about. They seem to get together and have fun with computers". They were crews who crack stuff.

[vivin]

Oh, wow! I did the exact same thing! I remember thinking why some files would just "run" from the command-line and why others wouldn't! I remember renaming a .TXT file to .COM or .EXE and also wondering why it wouldn't run!

[falsedan]

  > This hits close to home.

same, but I grew up in rural Australia, so it's missing the hours of driving to get to a null link modem cable party.

[Ar-Curunir]

ISM was the bomb. I still remember being taught what an ALU did or what the CPU was. We had just started doing some basic LOGO programming (around 4th grade-ish) when I left.

[vivin]

Hello! Haha, yes I remember the computer store in Al-Harthy complex where you could get games; all pirated of course. I remember I used to go there with friends in high school! Definitely good times...

[vivin]

Just saw your line about ISM - I was in ISM until 8th and I still remember they had those classes in the computer lab by the canteen :) I moved to ISG after 8th because my dad got a job in Ghala.

[shrikant]

Another ISM-er checking in. So many of us here on HN, woot!

[yashinm92]

Looks like it's an Oman meetup! Student of ISD here.