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yeah i had that feeling. i've met a lot of fellow tinkerers in the field.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Doesn't work with living things though.
Had to tell my daughter, you can't mend a frog with superglue.
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oh come now. a few stitches, some tesla coils, a stormy night. What could go wrong? 
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Well define mend, to close up and rejoin skin yes, to get a fully functional Kermit, no...
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Well, she had chased away a magpie and wanted a fully functional kermit.
Yesterday she found a dried out rain worm on our driveway, and promptly fetched a bucket of water.
Then again, last week she asked for a pair of scissors. When I asked what she needed them for, she was going to cut slugs.  I wonder where she learned that.
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As 2 year old my Dad showed me a screw driver and how it work. Since then no 'warranty void if damaged' sticker remained for a long time, I'm a hardware guy today...
modified 9-Sep-19 8:24am.
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I really like this idea of taker-aparter. As a kid in the early 60's, we would rummage neighbors trash cans for stuff to disassemble and "rebuild" into some other useless thing, until activated with imagination. I always wanted to know how something worked.
So, I fell in with the wrong crowd in high school (1968) - the science and math department. They had a ASR-33 teletype connected to a timeshare system and had no idea what to do with it. I got some info on Dartmouth Basic, and was writing simple things in a week. By my senior year, I assisted in teaching a class on programming and had created a library of various apps for the department.
I went to college to get a degree in Electical Engineering so I could design computers. Well, that never happened, never finished my degree, but just retired from programming/manager/architect after 45+ years. Seen it all, done it all. Had a great time. Still coding for fun. Might look to do some pro bono work for a local cause/charity.
The cure to boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. -- Dorothy Parker
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honey the codewitch wrote: What made you start coding?
The awesome gaming capabilities of the Commodore VIC-20[^]! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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yeah, i remember my machine was supposed to be the Amiga killer.
John Scully was ... not so smart.
At least it played Leisure Suit Larry.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I was lucky that my father had a good position in communist Hungary and was able to buy a 2nd hand C64...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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ooooh, i bet that getting that was like 3 christmas' worth of joy.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Even better - within a year I collected money (recycling glass, metal and paper in all the neighborhood) to get a disk driver... build a joystick and installed a hard-reset button...
As today I'm writing a game for C64 - using emulator...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: As today I'm writing a game for C64 - using emulator...
Cool. I did much the same thing, only with Apples, because i learned on them, and they share CPUs with the nintendo and super nintendo so i learned how to write games for those machines by learning on an apple.
So I wrote a nintendo emulator in c# at one point. started writing some games for it but never finished. LOL
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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We all know that pet-projects are not to finish, but to learn and enjoy...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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That's a very healthy way to look at them I suppose. =) +1
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I have many, many pet projects that I started with great enthusiasm and curiosity, "can I make this work?". Many of them petered out once I got the "yes, I can make this work" stage as I lost any determination just to polish it to the end point.
I wrote many games for my friends to play but if there was no interest from one or more of my friends then the project would fade away.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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honey the codewitch wrote: ooooh, i bet that getting that was like 3 christmas' worth of joy.
Mine was, quite literally, spread over 3 Christmases. I got my C64 (and tape drive) on Xmas 83 (84?)...I put up with the tape drive for a year. Then the next Xmas I got the floppy drive, and the one after that a printer. I never did get a "proper" monitor so everything was hooked up to a TV on channel 3. I'm sure that did nothing good for my eyesight.
As for the thread's main question...I started coding because there wasn't much I could do with the computer other than play what few games I had the first year on cartridge. Since most games came on floppy, that wasn't an option for me so I started reading the programming manual, and saving stuff to cassette. The floppy drive was a godsend.
After that I was old enough to get a job and spend my own money on my own toys, so I got a 64C (really the same thing, but in a gray/white package), and my folks sold the original 64 to a couple of friends of theirs who had a kid a few years younger than I was...then I got a 128...I honestly have no clue what happened to those computers and sometimes wished I still had them. Then I moved on to the PC world.
Nostalgia got the better of me, and got a 64 Mini last year (thanks to Nintendo for starting that trend). Then the nostalgia only got worse  and a few months ago I purchased a 64C + floppy drive (the "real thing") off of Kijiji, a Canadian equivalent to eBay. I temporarily hooked it up to a TV via the antenna connector, just to confirm it works, but I don't have the room to leave it there permanently. I have the room (and monitor) to set up elsewhere, but need some sort of adapter to hook it up via VGA.
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you need something that takes composite i believe?
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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If only.
I have no spare TV, and all my spare monitors are VGA only.
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I have one of those, or at least a more sophisticated/expensive version of it that includes audio (this converter from Amazon would be video only, would it not?). Mine's either no longer working, or there's something wrong with the conversion somewhere along the way, because it wouldn't show anything. I'll admit I haven't fully investigated all my options yet...
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i think this one claimed to have audio, and amazon takes returns. it might be worth a shot.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Not seeing any link in your message, or did you mean the one you had already previously linked to?
If you meant the item at your previous link...then clearly, it's only got RCA and S-Video for input, and VGA for output. None of which handle any sort of audio. Unless all the pictures are wrong.
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the description said something about sound, but TBH i just skimmed it. was assuming there was an 8th inch stereo output jack on it somewhere. *shrug*
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Failed my last year of University* because I had been playing World of Warcraft too much.
I still lived at home and my parents weren't pleased.
They just sold their IT company to an uncle, an employee and a third that wasn't with the company until he bought it.
My mom said "you're going to find a job or I'll do it for you, you can start there!"
And I said "but I don't even know how to write code!"
And then she gently whispered "THEN YOU'LL F***ING LEARN!  "
And so I was hired because I was the son of old management and the nephew of new management and also because I had some affinity with computers, being a gamer and all.
No one in this story regretted that decision.
I liked programming and I learned it very quickly.
I learned a lot, wrote some great software, introduced some new technology to the company, made them a lot of money (earned some myself as well), and then I moved on after four years 
Another five or so years later and here I am
*I still finished that last year of University, earning me the title Master of Arts
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