My Introductions

**MystikShadows** · 05-06-2008, 16:56

Hello everyone,

Well it might be a little late for introductions but I figured why not do it anyway ;-).

Some of you might know me from the PCOPY! magazine while others from posts here on the thinBASIC forum and others might no me from other BASIC related websites and forums. The important thing is that you know me lol.

Basically, I've been a programmer since 1975 (I was 7 at the time, you do the math to get to my age). I went to the library back then and instead of getting my usual kid books of the time I had to go across a different row and noticed those weird things with all the buttons on them that made a TV screen look funny (at the time hehe). it cought my attention and I opened up one of those books and got hooked right from the start. I was lucky enough to move often during my youth so I read all the programming books in a library then moved and read all the books of the new library and so on and so forth. The schools had computers and I went there after school hours to practice exercises that were given in the books and learned programming that way. I would pickup books on anything and everything so by the time I was 10 I had learned BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, ALGOL, AP/L and a hybrid version of Pascal and FORTH (before the 1979 USCD Pascal Standard.

I'm not sure why, maybe because the books I would take out didn't really talk about them, but game programming was never an interest of mine (until very recently) I would love to do programs to crunch numbers, save records, financial analysis programs, inventory programs you name it if it was business programming I was there doing it lol. a few years later I made the connection that the programs were all about business and well, after knowing how to program I started taking out business management books to start reading so I understood the other side of the business, what's known today as business knowledge. You can imagine that back then and well still today, languages that can natively handle databases and text mode application have been my favorite throughout the years. So yes, I've also learned to use DBase, Clipper and CA-Visual Objects, Paradox, Access, Approach, Oracle, SQL Server, SyBASE, MySQL PostgreSQL, Borland Interbase (now the firebird project) and wel I made a career out of programming and it's been a good one so far.

Recently I've decided to hop into the gaming bandwagon and though I'm not that good at graphics I think I'm pretty impressive as a text mode application designer and have been working on a StarQuests project. as well as a few others one of which I call Color Triple Yahtzee which is a very unique implementation of a classic dice game we probably all know about today.

.

I heard about thinbasic when I was searching for opensource or free languages and wanted to know what was out there, and well the rest is history. I play with thinbasic, it's a phenomenal language driven by a phenomenal team and I am loving the direction it's taking and can't wait to see where it will go next. :-).

Hope to get to know more people

**kryton9** · 05-06-2008, 18:24

Great Introduction MystikShadows. I am pretty sure you will find game programming a lot of fun. That is what is great about programming, it makes almost anything we work on a fun project.

**Petr Schreiber** · 05-06-2008, 18:41

Thanks for the info,

very interesting! Programming from 7 ... that is cool, I do not know anybody similar

Petr

**MystikShadows** · 05-06-2008, 19:33

lol yeah, 7, my mom and dad were wondering what the hell I was up to in my room isolated on thos long summer days lol.

I don't know of anyone similar to me either, some came close though lol. It's pretyt cool to be in the industry and keeping since the birth of micro computers saw all the ads for the old commodore PET computers, TRS 80 and all that good stuff back when they were THE state of the art new electronic things. Apple computers back before bill gates had that historic meeting with IBM to have DOS installed in their PCs.

Back when we FINALLY HAD a REAL 16/32 computer to play when the MAC hit the market followed by ATARI ST series and Commodore Amiga first came out and I had to pick up my jaw from the floor a few times over during the initial presentations I've had the priviledge to go to.

Man those were the days. today, it's mac (riunning Intel CPU no less) and IBMs, no choice anymore. Kinda boring.

...it's time something weirdly revolutionizing starts to happen in the PC industry.

**ErosOlmi** · 05-06-2008, 20:16

Hey I was 20 when I first encountered my first PC.
And before? ... emmmm ... just ... :-X ... girls :-*

MystikShadows, you are unique!

Just for the record:
I understand "Shadows" in your forum unsername but what about "MyStik"?
Maybe misterious or something similar?

**MystikShadows** · 05-06-2008, 20:21

lol Mystik as in Mystical as in Mystical creatures but with the k instead of the C it makes it look more masculine ROFLMAO.

But it's there to say don't try to understand me, just deal with what you get...LOL