Because at 11 years of age, I didn't have the financial capacity to buy my own computer hardware. I had access to a System 80 (which was a locally sold Z80-based PC similar to a TRS-80). It's still produced today, BTW (the Z80, plus some derivative chips).
My personal access/ownership of computers started there, went to a Dick Smith Wizard (which was a rebadged CreatiVision games console but you could get a BASIC cart for it), Atari 800, TI-994a, Apple IIe, Amiga 2000 (with an 80286 board as a secondary bus), upgraded Amiga 2000 (added a 68040 processor), upgraded the 80286 board to an 80386 board, added an Amiga 1200 which I networked to the A2000 with a parallel port network and it could also see the secondary bus 800386), then a Pentium I and then a slew of PCs on from there until now.
I taught myself various versions of BASIC, Assembler, and REXX - but I was never a coder as such, just little projects to get things done for myself.
Sounds as if you and I have something in common, Phil. I got into computer science by chance too. When the IBM 360 first came out -- the first multi-tasking computer -- I was a Lt. Col at NORAD Hq. Ops Plans. We were working on a replacement for the original computer system in Cheyenne Mountain. I went to a course on the 360 at IBM, and during the course got exposed to PL/I, which was a mix between Fortran and COBOL. For some reason I really took to programming. The TRS-80 model I came out about the time I retired from the AF in 1977, and I was the second guy in Colorado Springs to own one.
Long story shorter: I started doing software development for a couple businesses in the local area. Got involved in writing a financial program for Colorado Tech, along with Dr. John Zingg, a retired AF officer who was a good friend, head of the computer science department, and the guy who'd started the computer science program at the Air Force Academy. I tumbled onto the C programming language and learned it. John talked me into doing a class in C, which was new for the school.
I've always loved teaching, but one of the things I discovered at the college was that when it comes to programming, you either have it or you don't. It's sort of like musical ability. It's something you're born with -- or not. There were a few young people in the school who were in computer science because they thought they could make big bucks in the field. But they simply didn't have the aptitude for it. Others flew high without really having to strain anything.
I started a little corporation and pretty soon had too much software development work to afford to go on teaching. I've always regretted that, but I had a ball breaking problems into smaller problems and the smaller problems into trivial problems and then building the software to put it all back together. At one point I also taught a course in C++ to Cirrus Logic's R&D branch in Colorado. I finally quit a couple years ago. Age has its problems. But I still love playing with it.