I was 4yo when I re-typed my first program from Atari manual to my Atari 800xl and was baffled that I had to retype it after restarting the computer. I tried saving it to a cassette tape but that didn’t work well. I envied my cousins who had their Atari with 5 inch floppy drive.
[−]jonathanlydall · 2026-11-15 Sun 13:01 UTC ·
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Speaking as a father of a 4 and 6 year old, and trying to think back to my own (lack of) capabilities at that age, a 4yo being able to re-type a program into a computer seems quite extraordinary.
[−]askbjoernhansen · 2026-11-15 Sun 15:23 UTC ·
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I think life was a little slower, so typing a program from hand written notes into the computer was pretty good for getting dopamine.
I was a little older than 4, but I learned to transcribe random snippets from the programming manual into the computer about the time I learned to read; and later I'd program (Pascal, not assembly) by hand writing when in school and then run home and try it out. What else were you going to do?
I was a little older than 4, but I learned to transcribe random snippets from the programming manual into the computer about the time I learned to read; and later I'd program (Pascal, not assembly) by hand writing when in school and then run home and try it out. What else were you going to do?