How it all began: Apple II Compatible

"Mom, I want to learn computers."

That's the first time I can recall expressing a desire to learn something to my Mom. Growing up in South Korea in the 80s, my childhood was pretty standard: lots of standardized testing, ranking by scores, and attending various hak-wons (after-school extracurricular activities or tutoring services), all of which were arranged by my mom. But the computer hak-won was different—it was the first one I wanted to sign up for myself.

In those early days, I dove into Basic, learning how to create variables, add them, print results, and run the code. Soon enough, I was writing code with for-loops and if statements. It was exhilarating! I was captivated by the idea that I could command a machine to perform tasks repeatedly without tiring it out or complaint about numbers getting too large.

My Apple II compatible looked just like this

Then, one day, there it was—a knock-off Apple II on my desktop. It felt like magic. I remember it costing around 600k Korean won, which I think is about $2,000 USD today in 2024. Not a small sum of money, especially for a fifth-grader hobby. But that Apple II knock-off changed the trajectory of my life forever, though I didn't realize it at the time.

Late into the night, I'd pore over Basic code, peeking into the assembly viewer to decipher how Basic syntax translated into assembly. It was my early glimpse into the inner workings of computers and programming.

That fascination with the Apple II eventually led me to pursue a degree in computer science years later, setting me on the path to becoming a software engineer. And that's how my career began.