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I started at age 6. My brother started at age 5. Lots of us started on Apples and IBM PCs and back in the day Amigas etc.

We didn’t have a lot of entertainment back then.

One of the greatest things of 80s micros were built-in BASIC interpreters. Turn it on and program immediately. Combined with source code listings to type in from magazines, you almost had to resist picking up some programming skills. Even the command to load a game was a form of programming already, even though 6-year old me didn't "get" it until a bit later.

We have easy access to so much amazing technology for free in today's day and age, but we IMHO really lost a lot from the glorious days of "38911 Basic Bytes Free - Ready."

Same for me on not immediately “getting it.” I started with an Atari 800XL and wrote some small stuff but didn’t realize I was programming until a few years later. It was fun tho. I miss that simplicity.

The shells on the Apple II and on Commodore PCs were BASIC interpreters. So it was really easy to get started programming even without knowing it.

I was 6 years old when I started with Apple Basic.

Same. I’m fact I suspect a large proportion of HN’s audience started around this age.

Yes. I started with BASIC on a VIC-20