While My Friends Were Playing Games, I Was Pressing BREAK

How a curious kid with a ZX Spectrum became an engineer who builds AI from scratch

When I was a kid in the early '90s, every boy in my class dreamed about the same thing: getting a game console or a ZX Spectrum to play games. And when they finally got one — that was it. Hours of Dizzy, Boulder Dash, and Elite. Pure entertainment.

I was different. Not because I was smarter or more disciplined — I just couldn't resist pressing the BREAK button.

The moment everything changed

I'd load a game from a cassette tape, wait through that awful screeching sound, and then — instead of playing — I'd hit BREAK. The screen would fill with cryptic BASIC code. And I felt something I can only describe as pure awe.