I wrote on Quora about my educational history and my start with computers and programming:

I learned BASIC on an Apple II during the summer of 1983 between high school and university. I immersed so engrossed in it that I forgot entirely about my 5′9″ gorgeous blonde gf and didn’t spend any time with her the entire summer!

I had previously toyed with TRS-80 computers in Radio Shack since afair the late 1970s. I had read a Radio Shack book on Microprocessors at age 13 in 1977 (when I was bed ridden from that high ankle sprain I sustained in football practice) that taught me everything I needed to know to understand essentially how a computer works. For my freshman year at the university, my father bought me a Commodore 64 and I spent more time programming it in assembly code than I did studying and going to class. That is when I began skipping classes so I could program. I still had a 4.0 GPA though. I placed #3 out of the 3 sections (about 300 students) in Chemistry 1. Unfortunately that ended up making me very depressed because I’m so gregarious and social. And I missed California. Graduated from Culver City HS and attended L.S.U. for my freshman year in college. I transferred to Cal State Northridge. I had tried taking summer courses at UCLA but I couldn’t keep up because I was too busy being a party animal, programming, not keeping up on the material and skipping classes. UCLA is top notch school that requires a student’s attention. I continued my 4.0 GPA at CSUN, but did not graduate because I for one reason I launched my own software company at age 21. I completed courses such as Digital Logic, Numerical Methods, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Calculus II, Probability and Statistics Theory. Typically my grades were in the mid-90s (out of a 100). And thus A grade and perfect 4.0 GPA. I typically did not go to class. I just showed up for the exams.