[RESOLVED] Speaking of the future ... how bout how we started

[Jvaguy]

I got started when I used to ask Questions on a BBS about DOS and UNIX and theyd laugh at me. Then I decided to read and read and do even more reading. Then Just to see what I knew I took at test at a company called Computer City (best job I ever had all 6 years) After finding out I passed and took A+ and many more tests. I realized im now on the other side. Best part is people come ask you those questions and you know the answers

[Paul Cunningham]

I started back in the days of the ZX81 programming in basic and machine code. ( one of the best groundings you can get, in my opinion )

Anyone remember typing in programs from magazines and then spending hours troubleshooting them because they never worked first time ?

This progressed to hardware tinkering, God, was I proud of my ST's 4 MB upgrade !

Then I got my first PC an immensly powerful DX2/66

The rest, as they say, is microsoft

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So, How many modems got fried this thunderstorm ?

[WinDrivers1]

My first psuedo computer was an Atari 800. I had a subscribtion to Byte magazine and used to spend hours typing in code and debugging. The only way to learn!

[Maniac]

I started when i was about 8 years old on the VIC 20, then Commadore 64, then XT's. By first year of high school i was helping the teach with some hardware stuff like installing RAM.

I did work experience at a computer shop and now have a full time tech job there.

Experience is an essential tool in learning.

[pcshark]

WOW, the Atari 800! I had one of those (-:

Let's see, the main unit was $700, and I got a 32K RAM upgrade to make it 48K, that cost another $300. The external single sided FM (single density) 5 1/4" disk drive was another $500. I got two of them to be on the safe side. It made copying diskettes SO much faster! And then there was the cassette drive, which loaded programs into Atari Basic (the primary "OS" embedded on the system) at a BLISTERING rate of speed! I remember there was this one game called SCRAM, which was a nuclear reactor simulation that I loved, and when I got the diskette drive (the first one), the first thing I did was to copy the prog from the cassette to a disk. I couldn't believe how fast it loaded! LOL

When I was 15 I took the money I was saving for a car and bought a PC-XT. I even had a 10 MB MFM hard drive. I was STYLIN'!!! I threw DOS on there, Lotus 1-2-3, even the IBM Word Processor (which I think was called IBM Write or something), and I still had a whopping 4MB left for my documents! I thought I'd never fill it up!

Sorry, just reminiscing. Loved that Atari! My monthly mag was Compute! I'll never forget typing in hundreds of lines of Basic. I'll also never forget when they started sending their programs on diskette with the magazine...for an additional $100 per year! I remember buying this 300 Baud modem with the cups that you set the receiver of the phone in, and my friend and I used to hack...er, I mean legally authenticate to the Atari mainframe and download whatever games they were currently working on. We had versions of games that weren't due for months, sometimes as much as a year in advance! How cool is that!

I'm getting all misty just thinking about it.


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R. Bret Walker, CNE

Professional Hockey: 8 months of the year when life actually means something.

[ReBoot]

I started in 1978 with a homebuilt based on the Z80.
2 12" floppys, and CP/M OS.
Graduated to an Osborne 1.
Bought a TI 99/4A for games.
First PC was another homebuilt, XT, w 640k.
Upgraded to 1 meg, and it really flew!

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Who needs a life, I have Internet!
Jim & Sue's Free Files | Jim's Modems

[sj]

I don’t know how many hours I spent on my TRS-80 typing in pages of code to play black jack or something like that. Next step was a qbasic on a 286/16. Wow that was fast.

Funny part about it all, In this wonderful would of Windows, I can’t believe how may old dos programs that are still out there and you have to write some little batch file to make them work.

SJ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Its hard for a computer to make up for lack of user intelligence!

[The-Fro]

I don't have a whole lot of years behind me, seeing as I'm only 15, but I started with an IBM clone 286, went to a 468 DX2-50, then, some years later, got my own CrapPaq 333. Let's just say I built my next one.

[Damned Angel]

went from a vic 20 with tape drive and 500 page programming booklet (woohoo) to IBM model 80 and then to a p166 w/32mb.....wow what an upgrade.

BTW the vic 20 still works and gets used to this day.

[This message has been edited by Damned Angel (edited June 14, 2000).]

[Renée]

I started at 12 years old with a Commodore 64. Wrote lots of lines of Basic until my younger brother decided to take the thing apart and lose half the parts. There was no way I could get a replacement, because my mom wouldn't even buy me a cassette drive for it! I can hardly believe all the trouble I went to with some of the stuff I wrote, with the C64 hooked up to the television screen, and then all I wrote was lost every time I turned it off. Never got bored with it, though. Never once had a BSOD, either.


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GeekGirl
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[BAD.IRON]

My first puter was a Radio Shack model 1, as many of you said I spent hours typing basic and debugging. It came with a regular old tape player for storing your data no hard drive available. It was a real big deal to buy floppy drives, and how about that blazing 300-boud modem that the old rotary style phones handset would be placed into the modem cups. If you go to the Smithsonian the Model I is on display.

[Dante IronBalls]

Oh man, I really shouldn't because im going to date the hell out of myself.

2 words:

Timex sinclair

I turned 40 today, how's that for scary? :0

Dante

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The avalanche has already started...it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

[Larommi]

I took 3 semesters of programing in High School. On Apple II's. The following year Apple all about quit production on that line, and the school switched to IBM. I got away from computers and toyed with cars. Didn't touch a computer again until the summer of '97 when I put a modem in my parents computer and discovered the internet!!! Never worked on one after that until the fall of '98 when I decided to try and put one together for myself. And it almost worked until I found out that the i740 video card would not work with my K6-2 300MHz. Got a new card and it worked fine. I put this thing together myself.

About a year and a half ago a guy opened a small computer repair shop in the next town over and I started hanging out with him. I offered to work for free if he would teach me. I was a truck driver at the time and would pop in for an hour here and there. He, wound up firing the guy working for him and offered me the job. No experience. That was almost a year ago. He likes the job that I am doing and I have learned TONS. But, I do not know it all, but I know where to find the answers. Usually, here! I love the field and I plan on staying in it. Now, I am looking into schools and toying around with networking. I have gone on a few service calls to see actuall networks in action.

Best of all I am having fun!

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Big words often hide small ideas.

[WildTech]

Wow!! Some of these stories bring back memories.

The first year that computer programming was available in our school system I was a sophomore. 1980-81 to be exact. I don't remember the model numbers, but the first computer I worked on was an IBM. No hard drive, just a boot floppy and a data floppy......hehe. I was hooked!!

After I graduated, I attended college and majored in computer science and business. Back then computer science was strictly programming, no repair coarses were offered. Although I liked programming, I found myself wanting to deal more with the hardware and less with the software. After college I started a wholesale food business with my dad. I didn't do much with puters for several years until the need for a billing machine for the business came about. This time I had my hands on the hardware. Bought 2 used 386s, upgraded em to 150 mg hard drives and 8mg of ram!!! Didn't bother with Windows 3.1. It was just a passing fade..........hehe. Again I was hooked!!

In 1996, with the business doing well, I was bored!! Successful, yet unfullfilled. Something was missing. Luckily, a friend of mine who had a small computer shop a few miles away was crying about how he couldn't find any part-time help. The rest is history. That part-time job was exactly what I needed. Now I own and operate a small, but profitable computer store right next door to my families other business. Life is good!!

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WildTech

**I'd rather be lucky than smart!!**

[AlienDyne]

Lets see..... Hmmmmm...
I was 15 years old when I asked my father to get me a computer for the first time.
My favourite one was Amstrad CPC6128.
He didn't get me one, because he wanted me to keep studing for school and not playing all those games!

When I started computer and hardware lessons I bought an i386DX2-40, having 8MB RAM and 200MB HDD. I remember it took me 1 day to remove DR-DOS 6.2 in order to install MS-DOS 6.2! After a month I had installed Windows 3.1 and it was a beauty!
I also remember working QBasic 4.5 and Assembly, starting after school (at 15:00) and finishing at 00:00!
It's 1,44 floppy drive, is working perfectly on my PIII-based main machine now.

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Always try to do the best.
If it's too difficult, just forget the whole idea!
AlienDyne

[This message has been edited by AlienDyne (edited June 16, 2000).]