I was trying to solve my aunt’s book-keeping with ZX basic. No success. She was just thinking I’m playing games. And bookkeeping is very complicated. But I defeated it later.
The first time I really got this thing was when I have developed “Guess-a-word” game. The thing shuffles the words and you need to guess it quickly. It was ZX Basic, “compiled”. I did show it to my classmates and first time got that feeling of “programmer of standing reputation”.
I realized it when I did salary calculation application for my mother. ZX Basic, it has no any “user interface”. The program was prompting to enter employee’s name, rate and number of hours. Then calculated and displayed in certain order. Nothing special, but remember there was no any computer at the enterprise (chicken factory) at that time (1990). All by hands, on paper and double(triple) checked.
Another good experience I got was trying to impress my father with programming skills. I made myself a sprite – 8×8 pixels robot using ZX Basic. My father was sitting for 10 minutes and waiting until I finish and after I shouted ”Ta-da!” he just said “Where the thing is?”
The first programming experience I got was making my new ZX Spectrum (clone) doing sounds. The computer wasn’t connected to TV yet (some kind of modification was necessary) so I took a “Basic quick start” book and coded my very first program “in the dark”. Parents were impressed.