A memory of my childhood is being given an exercise book at age 11 to create BASIC programs in. It was 1980 and my school had purchased a BBC Microcomputer. All the 
pupils shared the one microcomputer, so most of the time we would write our BASIC programs on paper and be graded on them without being able to test them. This was 
common practice at the time, digital worlds being conceived not in random access memory but in the minds of children. Back then we coded directly into random access 
memory and then dumped the RAM to magnetic tape. I had seen a hard drive drum in the local university computer lab but it would be at least a decade until I had 
access to one. Even at my first mainframe job I would still be batching my code on magnetic tape. Anyway, one thing I took away from this experience was the 
persisting belief that I did not need cutting edge technology to create new worlds, only an exercise book and a pen.