[segfaultbuserr]

Do you know the calculator hacking community? Graphing calculators like TI-84 are commonly used in American math classes, and they are reasonably powerful general purpose computers. So the hacking community started because a bunch of highschoolers are bored enough studying math at school, and discovered programming. First it was BASIC, then Z80 assembly, and later some even started creating their own programming environment on the calculator, rediscovered many high-performance graphics hacks used by early video games. After graduating from highschools, those who still have interests in calculators have developed open source toolchains, programming languages and operating systems in college for calculator development.

However, when Texas Instruments released TI-Nspire CX, it was boycotted by the vast majority members from the hacking community because the system is locked down.

Some teachers and parents commented,

> "one thing that [...] is NOT wrong is TI's refusal to make the NSpire a platform for Doom or Quake or any other distraction that kids enjoy. These things may be fun, but they aren't about learning math"

I think it describes the same phenomenon.

[TeMPOraL]

And then people are surprised kids hate school and don't learn a thing.

Tinkering, fun, and being free to follow a stupid idea down a rabbit hole is how people learn and internalize stuff.

[matmann2001]

I was one of these people.

In middle school, a teacher showed us how to make a pythagorean theorem program, and I immediately saw the potential. When asked if it were possible to make a quadratic equation program, the teacher told me it couldn't be done. I had one written by the following day's math class, and I was hooked.

By high school, I was writing actual graphical games for the TI. I even taught friends so they could help contribute.

If it weren't for that freedom to explore, I would never have even gotten into software. And while pursuing my degree, I came to realize that my friends and I had "invented" some core programming concepts, things like hashing and basic cryptography (so no one would steal our game assets).

[ericwood]

This was me. I was actually packing for a move today when I found an old hard drive that has a backup of my homedir on my family's old win98 machine which has all my old BASIC games and programs. At the time I channeled all my boredom into that thing and it led me on a path towards computer programming.

There was a really vibrant community on IRC and ticalc.org, which I was fortunate to find, because it was one of the only programming communities I know of at the time filled with people around my same age; it honestly changed my life. I wouldn't be where I am today without having found it.

[_bxg1]

"but they aren't about learning math"

Hmmmmmmmmmm

[TeMPOraL]

Yeah, exactly.

By 15yo, I was knee-deep in trying to make my own games. Final exams came, after which everyone's chatting about how they solved the math questions. "It was simple, I've used Pythagorean theorem", they'd say, and I rolled my eyes wondering how that applies. I said, "it was simple, I've used the formula for the length of a 2D vector, which is also the same for the distance between two points". They rolled their eyes wondering what I was talking about.

(It did click for me a couple moments later that the cool thing I've learned for my game programming goals was, in fact, derived from the Pythagorean theorem.)