Programming - early days

`0:07:08`

I got into loops, I got into all these things and I still, I couldn't do it. And on the second attempt, I really got to the point of like, maybe I'm not smart enough, maybe programming is just not for me, maybe it's too much math. Like I like math in this sort of superficial way. I don't like it in the deep way. That's some on my perhaps slightly nerdier friends did who I had tremendous respect for. Like I'm not that person. I'm not the math geek who's gonna figure it all out. So after that attempt with EasyAMOS and failing to even get, I don't even think I completed one even very basic game. I thought the program's just not for me. I'm gonna have to do something else. I still love computers. I still love video games. I actually at that time had already begun making friends with people who knew how to program, who weren't even programming EasyAMOS. They were programming freaking assembler. And I would sit down and just go, how do you, the moves and the memories and the copies, how do you even do this?

`0:08:09`

I don't even understand how you go from this to Amiga demos, for example. That was the big thing with the Amiga. It had this wonderful demo scene in Europe. It's this really interesting period of time in Amiga's history where you had all these programmers spread out mostly all over Europe who would compete on graphic competitions, where you could probably bring one of these different... — On that thing? — On this thing, they would make these little almost like music videos, combining some midi music, combining some cool graphics. And they would do all of it in like 4K, four kilobytes. That is not 4Ks of revolution, four kilobytes of memory. And I just thought that was such a cool scene. This was obviously pre-internet. It was even pre BBS, bulletin board systems to some extent. It was you swap your demo software with someone else by sending them a disk in the mail, like the 3.5s.

`0:09:11`

And I was enamored with that whole scene. I was enamored with what they were able to create and I just wanted to be a part of it even though I kind of didn't have any skills to contribute. And that's how I got into running BBSs. I didn't learn programming then and I wouldn't learn programming until much later, until I was almost 20 years old. The bulletin board systems existed in this funny space where they were partly a service to the demo scenes allowing all these demo groups to distribute their amazing demos. And then it was also a place to trade piracy software, pirated software. And I ended up starting one of those when I was 14 years old in my tiny little bedroom in Copenhagen. I had my, at that point, Amiga 4000. I had three telephone lines coming in into my tiny room. — [Lex] Nice. — Which is funny because again, I'm 14 years old. By the time I was in Sterling, my third line, you had to get someone from the telephone company to come do it. I get this guy and he's just looking around like, "What is this?

`0:10:11`

Why the hell is a 14-year-old having three phone lines into their tiny little bedroom? What's going on here? Why are all these modems blinking red and black and making funny sounds?" — Did your parents know? — They did and they didn't. They knew I had the phone lines. They knew I had the computer. I don't think they really understood that I was trading pirated software that was both illegal, and whatever else was going on. — Oh, we should probably say that in Europe, maybe you can comment on this in, especially in Eastern Europe, but Europe in general, piracy I think was more acceptable than it was in the United States. I don't know there maybe it's just my upbringing. — Even that conversation wasn't present. I never spoke to anyone growing up in Denmark. — The piracy is wrong. — Had any moral qualms whatsoever about piracy. It was just completely accepted that you're a kid, you won a lot of games. You don't have a lot of money, what do you do? You trade. — Yeah. — Some people would occasionally buy a game. I mean, I once bought a second Master System,

`0:11:14`

and I bought one game. Because that was what I could afford. I got "After Burner II." I dunno if you've ever played that game. It's pretty bad implementation on the second Master System, but it was like 600 crowners. And I was making money at that time doing newspaper delivery. I had to do that for a month to afford one game. I like video games way too much to wait a month just to get one game. So piracy was just the way you did it. And that was how I got into running this bulletin board system, being part of the demo scene, being part of the piracy scene to some extent. And then also at some point realizing, oh, you can actually also make money on this and this can fund buying more phone lines and buying more modems and buying more Amigas. Oh yeah, that was one of the demo parties. These were amazing things. — What am I looking at? — Isn't that amazing? — Look at all those CRT monitors. — All these CRT monitors. Again, when I was 14, I don't understand fully why my parents allowed this.