I was in high school, one of a few nerds that had been issued key-cards to the computer rooms.
Of course there was rampant piracy going on and a lot of gaming on those 386 and 486 PCs. We played Wolfenstein, Star Control, Comanche and Ultima Underworld ... and then one day there was a copy of Doom - the press release version with three levels. It was date-limited, so we had to set back the date on the PC's clock to make it run. :-þ
It was mindblowing. The 3D, the speed, the horror and the gore.
Eventually, the full version had been installed on every PC and both rooms were full with people on recesses playing Doom in "deathmatch" and cooperate mode, with only a handful of them being authorised to be there. Sadly, this led to our passes being revoked.
This led to me wanting to be a game programmer. I have to admit that I was a John Carmack-fanboy for a few years. Later, when I had Internet access, I used the "finger" command to check his blog to read the development of Quake and Quake II.