it's hard to communicate how different the programming environment was in the 90s. the internet existed, but the web didn't really yet, and besides, i was too poor to really have access to it anyway. so i just sat there and read some books and thought hard about stuff.
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://bsky.brid.gy/convert/ap/at://did:plc:3danwc67lo7obz2fmdg6jxcr/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfrjw5pdvc2c on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)