I hit the limits of C64 basic pretty quick and I read somewhere that there was a different language called "assembler" that was faster, so I convinced my mom to buy me a book about it. As I started reading the book I realized that I needed some software to go with it (the actual assembler...) and the book was about the "Merlin64 assembler" so I begged my parents to buy me that software for Christmas.

Well, as it turns out, that particular assembler was actually pretty obscure software. My poor Dad had to visit a dozen computer stores in Ann Arbor before he _finally_ found a copy.