I got my first computer in the 1970s (an Apple ][) and my second in the 1980s (an Atari 800).
I always had an interest in getting my computer to interface with hardware devices but I never really did anything about it.
In 2011 I came across the Arduino platform and I finally had a chance to use a device which straddled the gap between software and hardware. I bought a book called “Arduino Cookbook” and I learned all about “sketches” (software) and “shields” (hardware).
Later that year I bought the “ARDX arduino experimentation kit“.
To be honest, I spent a lot more time reading the book than I did playing with the kit!
In July 2012 I did bring both on a holiday to Kenmare and I managed to create a fairly interesting light display with 8 LEDs.
Included below is a video from that time showing how it worked.
I planned to add a potentiometer to be able to control the speed of the sequences but I don’t think I ever got that working.