Computers
I've been a computer enthusiast since I got my first computer for Christmas when I was 11 years old (in 1980) -- a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer. It came with a book on the BASIC programming language. That was the start of my journey in computer programming.
Since then, I've been an amateur programmer for over 40 years, learning 80x86 assembly, C, C++, Rust, Go, Java, Python, Julia, Haskell, and maybe a few other programming languages that I can't remember.
One of my first computer programs looked like this:
10 PRINT "MIKE GAINEY "
20 GOTO 10
The output amazed me and changed my life forever. I felt a feeling of awe of the power of what a computer could do -- or at least the potential. I think of a computer program as a machine that is absurdly faster than a person, and can work an arbitrarily long time for the cost of some electricity. The potential is world changing.