[tronium]

I went through the applications folder on my mac and opened every single one up to figure out what they did. That's how I learned to navigate the file system and discovered the Terminal app.

Read a "Linux for Dummies" at the library for a few minutes, that got me some basic commands. I would spend hours using "cd" and "ls" to look at files, and then I would try to run them... 99% of the time nothing would happen. When I made it to /bin, I discovered a lot of things I could run.

You have to put yourself in the shoes of a 13 year old with no social media, no internet, friends he sees for a few hours 1-2x per week, and a fairly limitless amount of homework/chores to do. Whenever people weren't watching, I'd do anything to not be working on homework at the computer. That meant hundreds of hours to mess around.

[aeonik]

Yes, I have been in similar situations, but I did have access to some Myspace hacker forums, and some gaming friends that were into this stuff to help guide me when I got stuck. At least later on.

I also got a few books at around 13... but your experience enumerating everything without a guide entirely, for so long, is quite something.