[realslimjd]

There were on the order of hundreds of high school students with computer access in the US in 1969, and even fewer with computer literacy. Growing up in the Space Age probably was inspirational, but that doesn't change the fact that computers basically didn't exist to the general public at that time. Unlike now, software development wasn't a widely known career. There wasn't a CS major in the US until 1962. I think that makes it pretty notable he was a high school senior in 1969.

[schiffern]

EDIT Personally, for clarification, I do think the code is impressive, but the above back-and-forth doesn't really explain why.

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That explanation still wouldn't mean support the assertion that writing the lander game is the part that's "impressive for a high school senior in 1967."

If anything, all this explanation would show is that their having access to a computer is the "impressive" part.

[Closi]

It needs access to a computer, creativity, and an impressive amount of capability for a high school senior.

This is 5 years before pong - you are inventing game concepts from scratch rather than standing on the shoulders of giants.

[tivert]

I think both. It's likely only very impressive high school students got that much access to a computer in 1967.

It reminds me of an article I read about Jai alai years ago: the sport is long, long past its peak, and one of the people interviewed said the players nowadays are some of the best ever, because only people who are really, really good and really, really love the game still try to play professionally.

[blahedo]

Not disagreeing with the overall point here, but there definitely were some high schools with computers and programming classes by then---my mom was teaching programming (FORTRAN) in a Chicago high school starting in 1967. I think she was one of the first dozen or so high school programming teachers in the country but I don't think she was _the_ first.

[scrame]

yeah bill gates at lakeside in Seattle was one of like 3 high schools in the country that had a computer.

[layer8]

It’s unsurprising that at least one of the hundreds would write such a game though? In particular when those having access already are self-selected to some degree.

[bee_rider]

It’s unsurprising that anything was done by somebody. In fact it is inevitable that the most impressive thing is done by somebody out there, because otherwise it wouldn’t be a thing that was done. But, being that person can still be impressive.

[BobaFloutist]

It's unsurprising that someone is the best at the world at running, but it's still pretty impressive when they do it.