I got into programming partly because I didn't have a lot of money. My parents were smart enough to recognize that having at least one computer in the household was incredibly important, but that one computer happened to be a good decade out of date. One of those "I saw this at a yardsale and picked it up for $50s" deals", the type of machine I use as personal mailservers/spaceheaters these days... I sure couldn't game on it, so besides using it for word processing and research, I learned how to program on it. I grew sick of win95, and nothing else would run on it, so I learned how to put linux on it and use that.

Anyway, my point is this: My current machine I do most of my work on has 64 GB of ram and 32 cores, but you absolutely can get into computing with the kind of money you can earn on a weekend mowing lawns.

(And yes, I was born before 1990. Not everyone in college knew how to program already, but all the kids who made it through the weedout courses sure did...)

I lived in BFE, Idaho until college and didn't have access to a PC most of my time there, and unfortunately, I had access to zero programmers. My introduction to programming concepts was made through trying to figure out and modify crappy JavaScript snippets on websites in 1999 over a 33.6K connection.

When I entered college, I was surprised that most of my classmates have had broadband connections and better computers for years, but never bothered to do much more than receive email with them.

Well, good stuff. :) I didn't have access to a pc before uni (1998); I just ate the material up and practically memorised Deitel & Deitel's c++. I worked for so little cash programming through summer I suffered from malnutrition. I don't even know if I was natural - I just banged my head against the wall until it fell down. It really is rather rewarding :D.

You're responding to the quote of the comment I responded to. I've met many people who started programming late, that was my point.

d'oh.