Raph Koster makes a pretty good case for 1971 being the perfect year to be born geek. I'm biased (born: July 17, 1971), of course:

* It meant I got to see Star Wars in the theater, 13 times, at age 8 and 9, exactly when it would overwhelm my sense of wonder.

* I got an 8-bit computer at exactly the age when boys get obsessive about details, and I spent days PEEKing and POKEing and typing in listings from magazines and learning how computers actually worked.

* It meant at least half the new games I played were actually new ideas.

* And yet I got to play real pinball machines.

* In real arcades.

* New Wave science fiction was the used paperbacks laying around, and I got to read cyberpunk and steampunk as they were invented, and see SF when fandom was not yet a media circus.

* I got to play D&D from as close to the beginning as most anyone.