In the late '90s, I really wanted to learn how to make a computer game. Our family's only computer was some kind of Power Mac. I managed to find my way into a basic copy of code warrior (because it looked like a programming tool based on a computer catalog). But we only had dial up internet that had to be used with permission because it hogged the phone lines. And nothing built in to the manual really explained enough to do much besides some basic stuff involving printing characters to the screen, and some keyboard input. If the manual had any kind of tutorial sufficient to make snake or even just a really bad version of asteroids or galaga or something I'd probably have never put down the keyboard. But instead, I kind of lost interest because I assumed I was missing something you needed to make graphical programs. Another barrier was that what internet time I did have mostly lead to Windows stuff. Not that I really knew how or what to look for.
The first program I was ever able to write that involved things actually moving on a screen came a couple years later and was written on my graphing calculator. Solely because the calculator came with a big manual that documented all kinds of functions you could use in a program. And so long as you were writing only a few pixels at a time its built-in basic language was just barely good enough.
The first program I was ever able to write that involved things actually moving on a screen came a couple years later and was written on my graphing calculator. Solely because the calculator came with a big manual that documented all kinds of functions you could use in a program. And so long as you were writing only a few pixels at a time its built-in basic language was just barely good enough.