What tech is really about / My first real experiences with computers.
My love with technology first surfaced late in my elementary school years. In hindsight it was obvious from the beginning what being a tech head was all about. I'll come back to that.
In grade six I remember studying for a social studies exam for hours every day. It was especially hard since I've only been learning English for two years at that point. A couple of weeks prior, I begged my parents if they could buy me a computer and they said that they would if I got 100% on my exam. I wanted a computer of my own because I loved playing around with the Macs in the school computer lap. A bunch of us played a multiplayer Star Trek game where we each controlled a ship and shot each other with phasers and torpedoes. I even found the fireworks screensaver fascinating.
I remember that my teacher was so proud to give me back my test. I got 97% on it and she didn't expect that out of me at all. I was just a Korean kid who was still taking ESL classes. She just didn't understand why I looked so sad. I explained that I would have gotten a computer if I did just a little better. My teacher called my parents the next day and had a face to face meeting with them. I have no idea what she said to them but I got a computer by the end of the week.
The computer I ended up getting was a 286 with 20mb hard disk. It was a sturdy IBM PS/2 that came with a dot matrix printer and some kind of a publishing software. I'm pretty sure the operating system was Dos 2.0.
I wanted a computer in the beginning because I could play games on it. But it wasn't long before it got to be much more than that.
I learned that to make games work, I had to mess with autoexec.bat and config.sys. It got be a chore making changes to those files to get different games to work so I ended up writing batch files to swap out different sets of those configuration files. Instead of buying more games I ended up buying a modem and logging into BBS's to download Warez releases at night, hoping that my parents don't pick up the phone and interrupt the download. It wasn't long before I ended up putting up a BBS of my own, and making content for multi-user dungeons (MUDs) as a mod. I got deep into the warez scene (remember Razor 1911 anyone?). I wasn't much of a hacker and I wasn't into phreaking or real life stuff (I read the Anarchist's cookbook but I didn't try making any pipe bombs). Instead, I was an ANSI artist and a BBS admin who hosted the most popular games. Long before people complained about Grand Theft Auto, there were games like Pimpwars. If none of these things make any sense to you, I apologize. It was a lot of nerdy things for nerdy people prior to the arrival of internet.
All this technology was new, fleeting, and we were all making things up as we go. The point is that while specific technologies will come and go, the willingness to tackle arcane things and the doggedness to see things to the end was the common thread that holds it all together. It still is.
I went on to go to swap meets, had my first run-ins with Linux (when Redhat ruled the day), blew up the first computer that I put together from scratch, had a juvenile career modding console systems, and so on. But I will cover that another day.
What was your first experience with computers? What paths did it lead you?
Please feel free to comment and share, and thanks for the read.
In grade six I remember studying for a social studies exam for hours every day. It was especially hard since I've only been learning English for two years at that point. A couple of weeks prior, I begged my parents if they could buy me a computer and they said that they would if I got 100% on my exam. I wanted a computer of my own because I loved playing around with the Macs in the school computer lap. A bunch of us played a multiplayer Star Trek game where we each controlled a ship and shot each other with phasers and torpedoes. I even found the fireworks screensaver fascinating.
I remember that my teacher was so proud to give me back my test. I got 97% on it and she didn't expect that out of me at all. I was just a Korean kid who was still taking ESL classes. She just didn't understand why I looked so sad. I explained that I would have gotten a computer if I did just a little better. My teacher called my parents the next day and had a face to face meeting with them. I have no idea what she said to them but I got a computer by the end of the week.
The computer I ended up getting was a 286 with 20mb hard disk. It was a sturdy IBM PS/2 that came with a dot matrix printer and some kind of a publishing software. I'm pretty sure the operating system was Dos 2.0.
I wanted a computer in the beginning because I could play games on it. But it wasn't long before it got to be much more than that.
I learned that to make games work, I had to mess with autoexec.bat and config.sys. It got be a chore making changes to those files to get different games to work so I ended up writing batch files to swap out different sets of those configuration files. Instead of buying more games I ended up buying a modem and logging into BBS's to download Warez releases at night, hoping that my parents don't pick up the phone and interrupt the download. It wasn't long before I ended up putting up a BBS of my own, and making content for multi-user dungeons (MUDs) as a mod. I got deep into the warez scene (remember Razor 1911 anyone?). I wasn't much of a hacker and I wasn't into phreaking or real life stuff (I read the Anarchist's cookbook but I didn't try making any pipe bombs). Instead, I was an ANSI artist and a BBS admin who hosted the most popular games. Long before people complained about Grand Theft Auto, there were games like Pimpwars. If none of these things make any sense to you, I apologize. It was a lot of nerdy things for nerdy people prior to the arrival of internet.
All this technology was new, fleeting, and we were all making things up as we go. The point is that while specific technologies will come and go, the willingness to tackle arcane things and the doggedness to see things to the end was the common thread that holds it all together. It still is.
I went on to go to swap meets, had my first run-ins with Linux (when Redhat ruled the day), blew up the first computer that I put together from scratch, had a juvenile career modding console systems, and so on. But I will cover that another day.
What was your first experience with computers? What paths did it lead you?
Please feel free to comment and share, and thanks for the read.
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