Back then I just was a kid who loved games, and then when I got GameShark for my gameboy, I started becoming aware of how to make my own codes, and tweak values and all.
Yup I guess you can say I got streetsmart with hex.
Meh, I've always been more interested in the technical side of games. I didn't play much video games as a kid anyway.
Yes, I'd say it definitely started for me when I got my NES Game Genie and saw what it could do to some games. And also after that when I got better at refining randomly-entered GG codes.
I had no idea about making games, of using a language, the relationship with the CPU. Whatever, I learnt only when I got that old xNes project resumed. At same time, I was learning about compiler, about the C language, about everything linked with programming.
Game Genie - a "My First NES Hack" for kids