It is safe to say, that everyone here has some interest in computers, and i mean interest other than signing onto AOL, chatting and then signing off. Everyone here has some connection with computers, whether you run your own hosting biz, or you run a website.

I wana know, what turned everyone on to computers.

For me personal, in high school. A teacher spent alot of time telling me how you will need computer skills for every job in the future, and tech jobs will be the big money payers someday. I am not sure about your high school years, but the year i graduated the pentium 200 mhz was the fastest computer on the market. My teacher saw the big computer thing coming, gota give him credit though.

What turned you onto computers?

Good post.

For me, I got into computers at a late age. I was 35 when I got my first computer; I'm now almost 41 HELP LOL.

Anyway to make a long story short, I went back to school for Mechanical Engineering so I needed to learn real quickly. I didn't even know what a window was LOL. It was my youngest sister that taught me the basics and I took it from there.

Now I use some of the most sophisticated Cad software and other software out there.

I love the computer.

Need to get a new one though. Anyone want to buy me one???
:D :D :D :D

porn

I got into computers when I was 4 (born '82).....

Basically I can't remember the magizine but in it they would have a game a month printed in BASIC code...

So you would buy the magazine (or steal it from my school) and program the code line by line from the magazine... And when you were do you had a stupid 300 line BASIC game :D


Gosh I miss my old 286... I remember when I thought I could never fill my 8meg harddrive.....

Heck or my first 1 gb drive... or my new 100gig one w/ 70gigs on it... Arg...

an 80 year old neighbour... seriously!

Back near the dawn of time there was a computer called the 'Commodore Vic 20' precursor to the illustrious Commodore 64. Our neighbour bought one before I had any idea of what they were. He was about 80 years old and had been through about 3 strokes. It was something to keep him mentally active, but teaching himself about these new fangled computer things.

He invited me and my brother over, and let us use it whenever we liked as he felt "These things are the way of the furture so you should learn about them"

Now there was an understatement :)

He died several years later, just before the birth of the internet we know today, so he never got to see just how true his words really were. He never saw 100mhz processors, let alone 1 ghz - he never even saw anything more than 8meg RAM, and that only through a shop front window.

Now it's around 15 years later (a little more actually), and here I am working online. Regardless of my success or failure, I have a very forwarding thinking old man, now sadly long gone, to thank for pushing me in a direction that may never have happened otherwise.

Greg Moore

> porn <

Now there's an honest answer.

Porn wasn't online when I started. In high school we had a donated HP something or other - it wasn't a PC - hooked up to a card reader and we manually filled in cards with pencil. I think the machine had 4 or 8K ram in it.

And I used to talk to school 20 miles in the snow. Well, it seemed like it at the time.

Despite my card writing experience, I was always intrigued. When the first PCs came out I was fortunate to work somewhere that got one and since no one knew what they were doing back then (on PCs), anyone with energy to learn became an expert. And so it began...

Born in 1983

First computer: 1990 (XT)
Then,
my daddy bought one of the fasted laptops ever. A Toshiba 386 woth 1024KB RAM. The laptop had the size of a carrying case, and had a black/red screen :)

Then, the unpredictable happend...
We spent over 4000$ for a 486 with 8MB Ram

At that time, i knew DOS inside out...
oh I like that time...

ps: Pentium 200 launched in 1995

Born 1983..
My first computer was a commodore 64, whichi used 2 spend hours programming silly games into which then used to come up with syntax error in line xxx lol. That was when i was about 5.

Then i used acorn pc's at school and then they got onto RM pc's which i used a lot.

We then got a 233 at home and so on and so on until now. I hadnt been into the technical side until relatively recently when i met this techie on the net who has taught me a lot.

Nice topic.

When I first got a computer it was all about gaming, chatting and nothing more, I was very unproductive. Then after awhile I found some Freeware games sites and noticed how the people who made the games were around my age (Well, at that point I was only 13 so they were a bit older) So I got into the whole Game Development Scene and had fun.

I still am in the Game Dev. scene but my main work comes from my online programming, which I discovered after trying to make a site...about Game Dev :)

Originally posted by Studio64
I got into computers when I was 4 (born '82).....

Basically I can't remember the magizine but in it they would have a game a month printed in BASIC code...

So you would buy the magazine (or steal it from my school) and program the code line by line from the magazine... And when you were do you had a stupid 300 line BASIC game :D


Gosh I miss my old 286... I remember when I thought I could never fill my 8meg harddrive.....

Heck or my first 1 gb drive... or my new 100gig one w/ 70gigs on it... Arg...

agreed 100%

Who inspired me?
My Father.

What got me into computers?
My Father.

He had me involved in computers from aged 7.
own factory sort of thing...
private work ;)

so am now 33 :)

He later let Mr Sinclairs ZX81 inspire me at Christmas time aged 14 :) That was it, hooked!

Unfortunately, he never got to see todays technology. If he was alive today I think he would be most impressed with the internet, particuraly WHT and Google, for him to imagine being able to type this would be a dream :)

God rest his soul.

If anyone has been to a NYC public school in the late 80s/early 90s, you know in elementary school computer class was like an "elective". Anyhow, in the first grade this old man taught my class. It was the good old IBM w/ DOS and we'd type in little command lines that would spit out funny statements. He told my mother how quickly I caught on and from then on I feel in love. I remember I'd get the HUGE HUGE HUGE computer shopper books and just marvelled at the different computers--couldn't afford one until Windows hit the scene. I can definitely say I grew up in the computer era.

I got a late start to computers. When I was in the 5th grade (bout 93-94) the school has Mac that had the game "Missile Command" on it, and that was pretty much it. Then the school had a computer class lab they occassionaly let us use toward the end of the year and that made me like computers even more...

I built a 386 with 1024 KB ram, and a 25MB HD out of a bunch of spare parts, but it only lasted bout 2 months and you couldnt do squat with it, but I learned DOS). I didnt get my first real computer until 1997 and it was an IBM Aptiva, 266MHz.

Last march I ran accross a program that allows you to create realistic 3d people and simple 3d animations, and I've been glued to my computer 18 hours a day. Now I'm learning php/MySQL... Now about buying Lightwave 7, Maya Unlimited, and Deep Paint 3D... *sigh* I need bout $12,000 for those apps (hey, maya unlimited was $13,000 now its only $6,000 something) :eek:

started out 7-9 years ago
my dad started me off
he bought a computer, boy was it a POS

but at the time i didn't know that!

my dad would have this accountant come over all the time and do some stuff on the computer, so i always watched

but uhm, i remember this one time, we were looking in the paper for a new comp, and i saw

486 SX 33mhz, Windows 3.1, multimedia system, 14.4K modem, speakers, sound, video

i waslike W0W!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg dad we have to get this
LOL

Little did i konw what garbage that was.....

well it was garbage then, and is garbage now.

either way, i had to use win 3.1 for 3 years, till i finally upgraded to a 166mhz.

but now i'm on a 800mhz

i would hands down say my dad got my into computers . He got me a commadore with cartridge games (of course i crashed the commadore just yanking it out the first time around) . From there i got more interested and starting trying to code my own programs that flashed colors on the screen and made noises .My dad was pretty up on computers , and always knew what was going on . Compuserve came around , and so on. I am completely consumed by computers and am still amazed at what they can and how much entertainment they provide.Is all i know is ill never forget
" LOAD "*" ,8,1 "

Originally posted by akashik
Back near the dawn of time there was a computer called the 'Commodore Vic 20' precursor to the illustrious Commodore 64. Our neighbour bought one before I had any idea of what they were.

akashik

By the way I started computer with Vic 20 too :) :)

It was great. It was only possible to write 1.5 pages of Basic program. I wrote my first programs on Vic20 :)

It was about 16-17 years ago. I was 13 at that time. I had some programming articles in a small computer magazine about Basic programming and CP/M articles 2 years later.


Mac

hey all good topic
well my self i started out on a commador 64 with a 300 baud modem LOL man thoes where the days. the person who inspired me to work on computers/the internet was a very good friend/brother who is no longer with us today.

he is the one who showed me the possablaties with computers and how to run unix (red hat) not that i remember to much exp for rm-rf is bad thing to do from root :)

he helpd me get my frist cupple of real computers as well
every thing from a vt100 dumb term to a 486 that we built.
and yes i did even had a 8088.
and the vt100 was on a modem so i could dial into a BBS and then jump out to IRC from there people who say how are you online i would reply vt100 at home:) LOL
but now im on a PII 400 but need to upgrade again:(

Guess most of you guys are too young to know 'bout this kind of stuff, such as the "Elf" that you normally built with a soldering iron and a steady hand...

http://communities.msn.com/RCACDP1802CosmacComputer

or, 'bout the "microcomputers" were made by places like "Ohio Scientific", and others... in the days before the term "PC" and "Personal Computer" came into play...