[varelse]

I would have been a geek deeply into street magic and Star Trek without computers. I suspect that would have gone precisely nowhere.

Pre-computers, the other kids already couldn't handle my vocabulary and my tendency to question the logic of their decisions. The effect I had on adults and authority figures was even worse and they reacted by constantly putting me into the slow classes in the hope that this would make me conform.

#$%@ that! There was not going to be a normal childhood for me. I wasn't "normal."

Computers gave me purpose. I spent all that time in the slow classes designing games and coming up with lists of likely user IDs and passwords. And much later in life when my dead-end doctoral career came crashing down around me, they tripled my salary in a day.

I say give the kid some toys, make sure he learns the importance of exercise and diet as he matures, and he'll be fine. Who needs normal?