QBasic

I'm an occasional amateur coder.

I got my start in coding about 25 years ago using the simple coding language QBasic to build a program where you could input any number of starting cards for two players in a five or seven card poker game.

And it would give you the percentages those cards would win if you ran out random cards to complete those hands a thousand times or so.

For a recent personal project, I used Claude Code to help me create some pretty cool things involving computer vision and video analysis.

So that is the only time I had a chance to hang out with him.

So my very first thing is actually writing a piece of code in the old, you know, the old computer, the QBasic.

I was around five.

It was for a calculator for doing basic math.

So I wrote the code in QBasic.

So initially, I was in software.

But then I was like, how this thing runs on the hardware? So I wanted to start building circuits.

He was like really excited about it, but I think he didn't really know much about computers.

And one thing he did know is he had learned how to open QBasic.

So this was like a DOS based computer.

He opened QBasic.

For anyone that doesn't know what QBasic is, it is a basic IDE and programming language.

So it's, it's both, you have an editor where you type in and then you hit, I think it was F5 and it will run the QBasic program.

So he wrote this QBasic program that said, I think it said like 10 print.

Hello, John 20 go to 10.

... everybody loved me.

They were like, "This guy can program in QBasic and quote Monty Python? Fantastic."

Incredible.

Um, but uh, you know, I could see finding really identifying with not just one, but multiple characters in this show simultaneously, and having it be, like, a really good combo escape fantasy parable, and just kind of emotional ladder for sort of understanding my place in the world.