Both of those. It occupies my mind and keeps me from getting bored, and also it lets me make something outside of myself that will act independent of me. At least to a degree, that kind of depends on the programming. Sawtooth and Squarewave both ended up being basically their own people.

[For a kid who grew up alone in the ocean, there was a major appeal in managing to make things that could talk to him, interact with him—finding things that he didn't have to puppet into interacting with him, at least as much. Things to make the loneliness less powerful.]