October 10, 2011 05:00 pm EDT

Growing up Geek: Ben Heck

Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today we have Hacker Extraordinaire (and host of his own show), Benjamin J. Heckendorn!

As a kid growing up in Richland Center, WI, I sometimes had to be extra creative in finding things to occupy my time, and my creativity naturally gravitated toward all things technology. Soldering, erector sets and deconstructing toys were the epicenter of my young life. Taking things apart to find out how they worked was essentially a rite of passage for me to becoming the geeky man I am today.

I got my first taste of programming in elementary school on a collection of even-then old Apple II's, but I really got into it wholesale when, at age 11, I got my first computer - an Atari 800. While still ancient for the time, I did a lot of programming on it and learned a lot of fundamentals that are useful to this day.

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