[switchbak]

My early days were DOS mode-x experiments mainly in Turbo Pascal. I had a manual I printed out, and some kind of BBS usenet-like forum thing.

The docs were so sparse and the communities so small that it really was a much different experience than today. I have fond memories of it, but that might just be me looking back with rose colored glasses.

I would have killed for stack overflow though! But there is a sense of self directed mastery that you don't get when you are so much more familiar with how fast the bodies of knowledge are.

The closest I get to that these days is trying to hack code on a plane :)