A CARTOON from Gary Larson's weirdly insightful feature, "The Far Side," shows doting parents watching their son play Nintendo while visions of his lucrative future as a Nintendo master dance in their heads. Would this be less funny if instead of Nintendo their son were doing long division and his parents had visions of his lucrative future as a long divider? Before you answer, let me tell you that I know several talented engineers who can trace their careers back to their interest in video games. For them, there was a natural progression from enthusiasm for the games to wondering how such games are designed and implemented to wanting to make games of their own.