[noir_lord]

The ZX80 is the reason I work as a programmer today.

My father bought one in late 1986, I ran my first program in 1987 (at 7) and I've been programming something pretty much (and literally) every day since.

I think at one point or another I owned all of the Sinclair's including the +3 with the strange floppy disks except the QL which I lusted over but we couldn't afford.

By the time we could afford a better family PC the world had moved and it was an IBM Olivetti Clone where I met Turbo Pascal (and beginning my life long admiration of Anders Hejlsberg, I don't think any single developer has had such a big impact on my progression as a developer without knowing I exist everything he's ever produced or worked on has fit the way I think about programming from TP to TS - even if you aren't a fan of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C# or TypeScript he's worth watching/listening to, the obvious joy and passion he takes in technology is inspiring since he's been doing it since I was in Nursery)

All because my father decided after seeing a segment on Tomorrows World that these "computer things might stick around" and bought a second hand one on a whim.

Funny the pattern your life can take from the smallest of decisions by someone else.