It still remains to be seen, but the C64 may have ruined my son's life as well. I have a similar story to yours and OP's: born in the mid 70's, got a C64 in the mid 80's, convinced myself that I was a genius because I could get it to do anything I wanted (I even learned 6510 assembler back then) and parlayed those skills into joining the internet boom of the mid-90's.

My own son was born in 2003 and he sort of picked up on my passion for computing, but he grew up in the iphone generation, not the C64 generation. When he went to college, he chose to major in CS like his dad did and just graduated last year into the worst employment market since the great depression. He did get a job so that's good, but we'll see how things go...

I do think I'd have an emotional reaction if I typed load "*",8,1 again, though...

I feel you. My son is still younger, but I have similar fears.

As any good husband would, I bought my wife an old SNES for Christmas a few years ago. And my son loves playing Super Mario World on it.

So I thought some time back, that it could be a great father-son bonding experience if he and I were to code up a simple pixel-style 2D jump'n'run together that he designs and I program.

Except that he's been taking way too great a liking in it. He's kinda obsessed with the development of that game already, and now I'm worried that I turned him onto something that I pray to God will never become his career...

The C64 didn't ruin anything.

Apple removing the compiler from the supercomputer in everyones pocket did, however.