Bill Gates wrote tic-tac-toe at 13, on a computer his school's parents paid for with a rummage sale

In 1968, computers were huge, expensive machines that most schools never saw. At Lakeside School in Seattle, a group of mothers decided their children should have access anyway.

A rummage sale that changed computing

The school's Mothers' Club used money from their rummage sale (a sale of donated second-hand items) to pay for a Teletype terminal and time on a remote computer. Students typed on the terminal, and their programs ran on a big computer elsewhere, connected over the phone line.

One of those students was 13-year-old Bill Gates.

Tic-tac-toe

Gates has described a tic-tac-toe game as his first program. Other accounts call it one of his earliest, so we'll say one of his first programs. Either way, the idea is the same: he took a game everyone knew and taught a machine to play it.

It wasn't useful in a business sense. But it taught him how to break a problem into steps a computer could follow, which is exactly what every programmer, and every AI prompt-writer, still does today.

What to learn from this

1. Access matters, and you already have it. Those parents ran a sale so their kids could get a few hours on a shared terminal. You probably have a phone or laptop that's millions of times more powerful, plus free AI tutors. The access problem those parents solved is mostly solved for you.

2. Start with something you understand completely. Tic-tac-toe has simple rules. That's why it's a great first build. Your first project should be just as clear: a one-page website for a shop you know well, a quiz on a subject you're good at, a tracker for something you already do.

3. Community builds builders. Gates had parents who believed in giving kids access, and friends to learn with. Find yours: a college coding club, a WhatsApp group of builders, or our community on Instagram.

Your "tic-tac-toe" this week

Pick one small, clear build:

• A personal website (student mode in our tool)
• A website for a family business (profession mode)
• A simple quiz page for your juniors on a subject you're good at

Finish it. Show it to someone. That's how it starts.