[sundvor]

Loved your write up of your amazing experience, what a great post.

Typed in game listings, I remember those well! There were magazines devoted to these for the Vic 20 / C64, with pages and pages of source code to type in.

(We were absolutely glued to them.)

I recall having the C64 basic manual for quite some time before being able to afford the actual C64, selling my Vic20 in the process and doing a summer job as a teen to afford. I stayed up at night reading it from cover to cover in anticipation. Not nearly as impressive as your story (I grew up in the safety of Norway, and you were picking up the languages way, way faster!), but it hints at a passion for computers we were both yearning for!

(I got into assembly on the Amiga but never C++, sadly)