What really got you into “computers”? For me, it was seeing a friend’s 386 running this (at the time) astonishing piece of code. At home, I was still soldiering on with a monochrome 286 computer, running at (yes) 0.0125ghz. It even had a button on the front to slow it down to 0.004ghz in case it was going too fast. I had a few games, and of course I played some games on friends’ consoles – but there was something about this demo that turned my head. I had to get involved.

Since then, I’ve been amazed by too many programming feats to enumerate or even remember – but here’s a few awesome things that you may have missed out on.

• 64kb of pure art. You can appreciate it aesthetically without even thinking about the astonishing feats of programming required to create it (if you don’t want to download, watch this in HD to get most of the effect).
• Raytracers implemented in javascript and postscript.
• Conway’s classic game of Life – used to create a Turing Machine.
• A scrolling starfield implemented in 20 bytes of abusive assembly.
• A plethora of eccentric programming languages, like Shakespeare, Brainf*ck, and the original novelty language, Intercal.
• A bizarre and clever Chrome/Firefox PNG hack. View source. Wonder… (Give up? Here’s the explanation).