I'm 44
Bought my first computer TI 99A 17 years ago. I was too cheap to buy any
software so I started creating my own. I modified a craps game to add
graphic dice with hand made characters with the built in BASIC. I ate a lot
of cold dinners because I wanted to save my work on the tape cassette
before I lost it.
  Bought an IBM PC and was convinced to learn LISP. I dumped that when I
found ZBasic. I rewrote a Basic program I had purchased to do analog to
digital real time logging with ZBasic and increased the speed and display
by ten fold at least. I wrote a customized word processor for the Minnesota
Department of Education and made an Apple II version in ZBasic as well.
After getting a job with the Saint Paul Schools I ran across a really
terrible port of an PC program to the Mac. I said I could do better and
MacMasterKey is still being used by our locksmiths. My wife asked me to fix
up the IBM PC program I mentioned above and after programming on the Mac I
can't go back and do it. (that was 11 years ago)
  My Macs to date are an SE, IISi,PB 520, Performa 475, and PB 5300c
  I have programmed a few kids games, Boxes, Worms, Cubes, TicTacToe and
Tangrams over the years.
  I have only made money doing custom programming. Usually Mac versions of
DOS or Apple II programs. These were study aides and testing programs for
the Penn. College of Nursing. I've also done an engineering program to
design spray drying chambers and a business app and game from the Apple II
and some HyperCard XCMDs in FutureBasic to control and program PLC
controllers on production woodworking machines.
   I have been spending most of my computing time lately working on
FileMaker and Omins7 databases, Web pages, with CGIs in AppleScript and
C--, JavaScript and Java Applets.
  I originally bought ZBasic because it was fast, cross platform and cheap.
I'd like to see it cross platform again or else the see the new Macs so
fast that they can run PC programs in emulation faster than the PCs can run
them(followed by the demise of Windows)