@leighc2 @Janeishly Late Gen Xer here (still in my 40s). I can't make such an impressive claim, but I was writing my own games in BASIC before I even hit my teens. I rewrote my version of Boulderdash in GFA for the Atari ST, then rewrote it again in QBasic on MS Dos.

The Atari version worked the best, because the language had specific commands (such as BMOVE) for directly manipulating screen memory. Even uncompiled, it was playable.

I also worked in IT for some years. Hated it, though...