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Comment by kleiba2 | Hacker News Reader

I could probably write a blog post with the opposite title, sth. like "My life got ruined by the Commodore C64". Equally hyperbolic, the narrative would go something like this: I was the exact same child/teen as the guy from the other blog, but the problem from 2026 me is that I got lured into IT through games and BASIC, and now I so wish I had chosen a different career. Alas, it's all I know how to do, and at this point in my life, changing careers is not a viable option.

So, thanks C64!

I still love you, though...

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Hello there -- I'm the guy who wrote the article! And I couldn't help but laugh at your comment. You are 100% correct, it could very easily go the other way. My story is that I actually graduated with a degree in English (as in literature!) and the only CS class I took was Pascal (where a friend of mine, who was also in the class, joked that we both got another language for a grade - C).

I'd never intended to be in a CS career, but the way I see it, the gravity of the C64 was simply too strong. I was pulled into its orbit whether I liked it or not, and now here I am, in IT for the last 29 years. My other love, writing, I was able to do on the side (five novels), for which I'm equally grateful.

It's a life -- my life. I love you, too, C64! :)

One of my best friend loves making music. And he was also always interested in recording tech. So after we both graduated from high school, he went on to become a sound engineer. But even right after getting his degree, he said that he never really wanted to work in that profession because he didn't want to lose his passion for it.

I guess both you and my friend did it right. I went all in with studying for a degree in CS and whatnot and here I am today, wondering what I was thinking...?!

You kept your passion, I lost mine. I envy you.

Btw, that LucasArts-style adventure game for the C64 that my other friend and I designed as teenagers is still something I must finish before I die.

Btw, completely OT but something I found puzzling when reading your blog post: how did your aunt communicate with the Austrian guy who didn't speak English?!

Ah, the answer is incredibly simple: my aunt speaks fluent German! She moved to Austria as a young woman and picked up the language, and picked up a husband. :) She speaks Korean, of course, so that's how we all are able to communicate with her. Recently we were at a family gathering, and one of my extended relations is married to a German fellow (who speaks both German and English fluently), and it was utterly cool seeing my aunt and him chat away in German (and sing "99 Red Balloons (Luftballons)," the popular 80s tune by the German singer Nena, in their native German)!

Awesome family constellation, thanks for taking the time to explain!

"Luft" in German = "air".

So English title would be "99 air balloons" or just "99 balloons".

(Excellent choice btw, among German-language songs it's an all-time classic)

The English version by the same musician chose to add "Red" to presumably maintain the song's cadence.

Great! Did you ever visit Austria? Maybe you can take some of the early impressions of German-language speaking with you ..

I have visited Austria many times, on my own with my wife and also thanks to a friend who was stationed there for a few years. Vienna is such a lovely city, and I got to see one of my favorite paintings (maybe my most favorite painting, really), Gustave Klimt's The Kiss, in person at Belvedere. My aunt lives a number of hours away from Vienna so I never got to see her there, so a return trip is not out of the question!

I regularly take friends and family visiting Vienna to see The Kiss, its a common waypoint in our tours of the city. Glad you love the city, it is indeed a very fun place to live .. although, in some ways, a bit like a small country town.

It still remains to be seen, but the C64 may have ruined my son's life as well. I have a similar story to yours and OP's: born in the mid 70's, got a C64 in the mid 80's, convinced myself that I was a genius because I could get it to do anything I wanted (I even learned 6510 assembler back then) and parlayed those skills into joining the internet boom of the mid-90's.

My own son was born in 2003 and he sort of picked up on my passion for computing, but he grew up in the iphone generation, not the C64 generation. When he went to college, he chose to major in CS like his dad did and just graduated last year into the worst employment market since the great depression. He did get a job so that's good, but we'll see how things go...

I do think I'd have an emotional reaction if I typed load "*",8,1 again, though...

I feel you. My son is still younger, but I have similar fears.

As any good husband would, I bought my wife an old SNES for Christmas a few years ago. And my son loves playing Super Mario World on it.

So I thought some time back, that it could be a great father-son bonding experience if he and I were to code up a simple pixel-style 2D jump'n'run together that he designs and I program.

Except that he's been taking way too great a liking in it. He's kinda obsessed with the development of that game already, and now I'm worried that I turned him onto something that I pray to God will never become his career...

The C64 didn't ruin anything.

Apple removing the compiler from the supercomputer in everyones pocket did, however.

Sounds like the normal mid-life crisis. :-P Would probably hit you with every other job too.

I don't know. IT is a bit different in that regard. As a doctor, even if the system is shit, you still help people directly. As an engineer, you build something tangible that can make people's lives easier. And so on. In IT, though, the impact often feels much more indirect. Most of the time you're optimizing processes or helping businesses become more efficient, rather than improving people's lives in a direct way. You're often several steps removed from the people who ultimately benefit from your work. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it just doesn't feel very meaningful to me.

Find an IT-related problem facing the whole world right now and fix it.

For example phone enshittification. Make your own phone that isn't shit.

As other people said everyone goes through this at a certain life stage. You go from exploring the world and developing your own skills, to figuring out what impact you want to have made on the world after you're gone.

I feel this in my engineering work. My software goes into cars that are mostly bought by rich people. Not very satisfying. I'm somewhat lucky my work goes into real products rather than shelved research projects. But I get my kicks out of helping friends and family with IT tasks. Set up a pi hole for someone. Give them an openwrt router with a wireguard VPN to my jellyfin server. Set up a cheap thinkpad with Debian. It's basic but it makes a visible difference.

I had the same kind of childhood with the VIC-20 and C=64 (and TI-99/4a in school as well). And having launched my career in I.T. I started as a Network Operator and then quickly promoted to systems administration, with SunOS 4.1.x mostly.

And I had purchased a beloved briefcase which I dutifully took to work each day, but my job wasn't really working with paper, much less anything that I needed to bring home with me.

And through those early years I really did fret about this: I produced nothing tangible at work. My work wasn't classified or secret, but there was nothing relatable I could really discuss about my work! What could I show people to prove I was a productive worker? How could I prove my worth, such as later on a résumé to a future employer? There was really just nothing.

And it went on like this for decades. I am sure that I, like many, struggled mightily with this intangible nature. Even my father, as a scientist, at least he brought home the Geiger counter, the film badges, the pager and the gadgets.

I suggest you run this by an actual doctor.

If you grew up with a Commodore your mid life is way past.

How do you figure? Commodore had strong sales through the late 80s, and the C64 wasn't discontinued until 1994.

My family's C64 was the first computer I ever used, and I am barely in my mid 40s. And although my family later purchased an IBM PC clone around '89 or '90, that just meant the C64 moved into my older brother's room, where we used it even more.

Life expectancy for most people on HN should be around 72 (give or take), so mid life is in your mid thirties.

Also, using the Commodore in the 90's is probably pretty rare.

"Mid thirties" is absolutely not a common definition of mid life. For reference, Wikipedia defines "middle age" as being the age range from 40 to 64, based on citing nine different sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_age

And also why do you believe the life expectancy for HN users (mostly adults, large portion based in US) is only 72?!

Sure and there you have the problem. No wonder people who do not take mid life literally and plan as if half of it is over with 36 (or let it be 40 if you must) are in crisis with 50. "Midlife" is really just an euphemism for "old, but in denial".

There's certainly that. But a lot of the points of the sibling and nephew comments here ring true, too.

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