What Sparked Your Interest In Computing?

[TechJumper]

Who/ or what did it?

[jl123]

Hmm....that's a good question. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

I think once I found sysopt I just got more and more interested in computers. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif It is just a natural interest that I have. I'm the curious type that likes to know how things work.

~Joel

[TechJumper]

I agree, SysOpt has greatly increased my interest in computers and the insides of hardware, opening doors i didn't even know existed. Its a whole new world when you take the case of the computer!

[Solidus]

Games games games!!!!

[sns]

I was dragged into it by doom.
I worked in a technical field but hated computers with a passion. I had bad experiences as a kid (fairly outdoorsy type) where a few mates were real excited about punching info into a box just to get a dot or something to move on the screen or add 2 numbers - real labour intensive stuff & boring. I remember some guys playing doom at work and a guy who used to hate pc's as much as me was twitching on the end of a mouse and I had to see if he wasnt shorted across the pwr cable. I drove the guys crazy with Q's until they gave up and told me to shut up and just buy one.
The Q's just multiplied, the more I read and heard the more Q's I had. Anyway true story, a **** game broke the phobia.

[TechJumper]

I also started with doom!

Long ago when DOOM was not a bad word (before the school shootings) I based my entire computer experience around that game.

I had a computer specialist set up dos to look more user friendly for my family and we had windows 3.1, doom, and pc sig games that my cousin programmed. Pretty exciting stuff, doom was advanced for its time, but that is for the gaming forum http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Best,

TechJumper
Michael Morelli

[Thud]

I'd always considered myself a very blue collar, old school type, and always said I'd never have a computer. My first experience with a PC was in a body shop- we had a system that hooked laser sensors to the computer to give precise guidance on straightening bent frames. Then, I joined the military and got in a pretty technical field and got some hands-on. Meantime, I'd played with this new "Internet thingy" on my brother's old 386 while at home on leave- what an excruciating and costly experience! But, I could see its potential. Then, I moved overseas and needed a way to keep in touch with my family. Even my retired father had one and was good with it! So, I started getting into them for home use, and inherited one from my brother. I built my own last year, buying primarily over the Internet, and am looking forward to building a new one once this one is completely outmoded (which by many peoples' standard was 10 min after I booted it up)!!

[TechJumper]

Funny thing you mention that, I was just in a machine shop with computer driven laser equipment. Pretty neat stuff, the old man who ran the place has a TI100 stuffed in the attic!! I think i convinced him to JUMPgrade (upgrading was to light http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Best,

Mike

[Over Clocked]

I started out with a good old Comodore 64. I use to punch in codes and get stuff to run on that machine when I was about 4. My grandfather used to read me stuff about computers and it pretty much set me in the industry. Now I'm 16 and I'm setting up business webpages and designing networks. Recently I just put together a Windoze 2000 network with security and made some serious cash. I think money is one thing thats got me real intrested!

hey read my post on the Athlon sytem and tell me what you'll think

[Dputiger]

The first computer I remember using was the 286 my Dad brought home in the winter of 1987 when I was 8. I was a huge reader and immediately took to text-based adventure games like Zork, The Witness, Zyll, and Adventure.

Soon after, a friend at church brought over the first true '3D' game I'd ever seen--Space Quest III.

The game was beautiful for its time and remains a stellar achievement for EGA even now.

Let's just say I was hooked. 11 years, five systems, hundreds of games, and lots of hours spent reading technical articles and how-to manuals....here I am. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[jad1097]

I have pretty much been around them most of my life. Mom bought me one in the early 80's. Pops worked on them in the military in the late 60's and also had one at his house for us kids and his business.


I still have my Apple 2 and Tandys.

I really got into them a few years ago and still have not stopped learning. Maybe that is why I like them so much, you will never stop learning if you seriously play with computers.

At 31 I am now to the point that I am tired of co-workers telling me I should start my own business selling and repairing computers, if they only knew how little I knew compared to some of the people here and at other BBS's, maybe I should start charging them for fixing and upgrading their Pc's! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif

[GroundZero3]

i think it was being able to get free porn without paying for it. Nah just kidding i really didn't have much friends back in elementary school so i used the computer to escape. i think when i was in the pentagon and i was taught how to build and repair is when i became a full fledges nerd.

JaYsin

[TechJumper]

Seeing that I am only in 9th grade, I can relate to the previous post, I feel like my social life exists on the internet, message boards, like these. I have plenty of friends in school, but none of them share the same interests in computers as me. Guys, you'd be sickened to see how many kids these days know NOTHING about computers or the internet.

Mike

[Snuffy!]

My dad let me play a game on his 286 laptop, and I just got hooked, and I asked him to buy me a computer, so I could play more games, and I just got addicted http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Warthog]

I guess it was the games. I needed to know the specifactions of our comp in order to buy games that would work on it - that's originally how I got into this stuff. I became increasingly more interested in computers and bought my own last year. After selling that comp, I bought a new one this past summer.

Same as TechJumper - friends know nothing about comps. Just cars, girls and N64 games (ugh).

Warthog

[TechJumper]

It seems like the general reason is because of the games. Many from DOOM, (does anyone remember the game WolfMan, and JezzBall\/

http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

I still play that game.

I am going to re-start this thread over in Gaming so please reference your posts there, the new theme of the thread will be games, what was your first?

[KAknight]

Doom II is what got me.

[AuraEdge]

Duke3d drew me into computers in general for some odd reason.
What drew me into hardware was...well Im not really sure but I remember I really got into it after I clocked my P200MMX to 233.
I think it had something to do with that computer shoppers magizine I bought..the huge $3 1000 page book o ad's, when i was looking to get a new comp to replace my PMMX.

[Joel Kleppinger]

Two things... my uncle and Nintendo. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif My uncle was always pushing the envelope of technology and computers. If you've ever heard of the music notation software Finale, that was the work of my uncle and his partner. I was always intrigued by how computers and how computer games worked

Which brings me to Nintendo. At the age of 8, I was DYING for a Nintendo. One day my dad came back from a business trip and there was a Leading Technology 386sx/16 box sitting on the table in the den. They then preceded to let 2 months go by until my uncle was able to come up and set it all up. When he did, I sat there and watched him do it... all 8 hours of setting up utilities and installing some games.

I didn't really get into the technical side of it until I needed to start creating multiple menus in my Config.sys (I was probably about 11) and autoexec.bat to free up enough conventional RAM to run different games or to have enough Upper Memory to have all the TSRs running that I wanted.

And it's been all downhill since then. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[TechJumper]

I must agree with Joel and Joel http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif on this one. My interest in computers was preceded by video games, primarily Nintendo. Ill never forget crawling through the lava dome in Mario Bros! It seems that technology has superceded this timeframe of only a few years, but we must give credit to the fact that all of us thought that that was HOT stuff back then! I still do -)

HOW I GOT MY NINTENDO

i was 6 years old, like others, dying for a nintendo. My parents are of the baby boomer time, "we don't need T H a t!" Well, that didn't stop me. I put up a lemonade stand and put my 4 year old brother in front to attract customers, I made 30 bucks in ONE DAY ( my parents showed me i was getting 5 and 10 dollar tips!) That convinced them to get me the console, and the rest is history!

My interest really boomed when I discovered the internet, Sysopt, and a great guy who has helped me TONs with my site, Scott Wainner


Best,

Michael Morelli

[ThiemeMD]

I was amazed by the flexability/expandability of computers. I remember calling/driving all over town to find a cassette data recorder for my VIC20, just so I wouldn't have to type in all those lines in BASIC again!!

And then I found you could Upgrade/Fix your own.... Can anyone else relate to soldering 18 memory chips onto a memory expansion board, just so your Tandy would have 512k memory????

CGA finally got me hooked.... WOW...COLOR!!!

[nunyadam]

a friend of mine bought a 486 dx 66 man it was the thing to have then. and he let me play on the net ,a little . but what really did it for me was wolfstien 3d (I still have a copy ) that's about all I do on this thing is play game's ,surf the web,try to make it run faster. just sold my wife's computer so I can buy more part's. (don't worry I'm building her a new one from spare parts )lucky girl get's to move up to a k6-2 500 on a gigabyte ga-5ax 128 meg ram ,13 gig maxtor ata66,voodoo 2 (sorry no she can't have my duron yet.maybe next month)

[Dputiger]

Joel!!!

This is SICK.

MY first computer that was MINE was a Leading Technology 386SX/16.

And my real name's Joel.

I think your an imposter and I'm the real Joel.

[voogru]

well I got a Sorta long story here goes!

I started when I bought NFS3(when it was new) and i saw all the pretty Graphics on the box hoping that I would get the same on my computer so once i got home i installed it and begun to run it and started the game.

THE GRAPHICS SUCKED... and it was choppy!
so i went on the net to figure it out and i spent hours looking for a solution no solution. then i went in the start menu and saw a little icon that said "3dsetup" Yes! i click it and tried to change the render thing to D3D and ran the game! the menu was all white?!?!? so i exited the game and changed the setting to the way it was and it worked again. then I finally uninstalled the game but i kept the cd cuz there was nothing wrong with it it was the comp that was a Piece of ****. at that time i never looked inside a case before i never seen a mobo hdd all i knew how to do is plug all the cords into the back of the PC. after bout 1-2 Months my dad got a new PC and I installed the game and ran the 3dsetup thing and the game ran!!!! I was amazed! but it was very choppy http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif . about 2 months later my dad got a new printer and we didnt have an Parrel Port so my dad got one for $30.00 and guess what..I had to install it but i had never even seen a PCI port or an AGP port or an ISA port so I looked at the connecter on the card and pluged it in but then the computer never turned on the moniter and i called up tech support and they could figure out how to fixe the darn thing so i had to wait for my dad to get home and take out the card and he put it inside the box and it was never opened for a while then after that I learned what a 3D Acclerater was and I wanted one a voodoo2 at first but i ended up getting a diamond Viperv550(and i still use it now) and i didnt like it that much so i asked for another 1 and i got an ATI Rage fury 32MB It was great that is till the computer company took my good mobo and put in a POS "PCchips" and it only had 2 PCI slots and it also had onboard sound which was **** so i got my diamond Monster Sound MX300 and found out the heatsink for the cpu was in the way of the PCI card?!?!? so I got out my bolt cutters and cut off some of the fins and the card seated fine about half way into the heatsink and obstructing the air flow so it was always overheating so i usally stuck a huge fan on it to let it cool off. then i installed half-Life and it would not run. "BAD SURFACE EXTENTS" I found out while it was loading a .WAD file (textures) it would give me a bad surface extents so i tried another memory dimm and I got no luck so I took it back to the computer comp and asked for another mobo and they said the was nothing wrong with it and I proved to them that i was having Problems but they still didnt change it so i was screwed. because i had found out the mobo they had taken out (the good one) they stuck it in nicer looking case added a bucnh of stuff and sold it for about $1000-1700 (this was this year) and now im useing a celeron 500 for a beta test of a 2 way satilite internet.

and that really why I like comps soo much!
I just keep trying to fix it 24/7!

a simple game started me on computers!


-voogru

[TechJumper]

It seems like the computers of the old days are relics compared to the new laptops I've seen floating around! The only thing that always seems constant is the price!

TJ

[Ed_S]

ThiemeMD - YES, I remember doing those solder jobs, but I'd bet most here don't remember when ram was individual socketed chips, much less soldered in! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Back to the topic, I first got interested back in the early '80's, and wanted one strictly for a learning experience. Quite a challenge back then. Taught myself basic & some other programming, but I've forgotten most of it since I haven't done it for years now. Did a bunch of those solder-it-up modifications.
First went online with Compuserve in '84, using a 300 baud modem. Never was much of a "gamer", still not.

Ed

[NDC]

The fact that I could copy games.

My first computer was an Apple IIe. All my buddies had one back in those days, I also has an ATARI 2600 game console. But getting my eyes on "Conan The Barbarian" on that high resolution green screen "LOL" I begged my father to get me an Apple IIe. But of course I told him I needed it for studying purposes! LOL. Believe it or not, that thing costed me over $2,500!!!! ANd that was when they didn't even have HDD's, had to run all games off a 5.25" (very floppy disk). Imagine what you can get these days with that kinda money! LOL

[Dave2]

Flight simulation software made me interested in computers. This lead me to interests in computer hardware since flight simulators forced computer upgrades.

[codybear]

money

[waferdog]

TO be honest, it was my desire to get out of the teaching field. I had had enough and needed something to do. I had some interest in computers and was lucky to find a consulting company who would take me on absolutely green and train me while paying me. I was amazed. I was making double what I made as a teacher while having absolutely no knowledge. Only in America.

[welsh wizard]

It was an old Atari 8 bit I bought to Play Star Raiders on, ( still have it and still play it ( I know, real dumb with the graphics around these days, but I got sort of addicted to it)after a while I wanted to know how it worked not software wise but hard ware wise, ended up biulding computers ( thanks for the curse Mr. Nolan http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif )

WW

[Undertow]

When I was about 6 years old I got my first computer, an Amiga. I loved that thing so much. The games really got me, even though they were pretty pathetic back then by today's standards. By 10 years old I was tinkering around with my parent's old computer parts and built a computer for the first time. Now I can't stop buying new computer parts!

[Underclocked]

Amazing how similar my answer is to some already expressed. I also worked in a technical field, had a standing mistrust and dislike of anything computerized, and had first experiences with very old, very big, and very slow punch-card types.
Finally saw the trend in home PCs, bought one just a few years ago, decided I had better learn something about doing my own tech work, became interested mostly in the hardware and setup aspects, and have been at it pretty seriously since.
Good hobby and very educational in some ways, but I've been less involved in things that I used to enjoy. Some of those were much more physically challenging and I need to get back into them as I'm becoming a toad at this monitor. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
Sure am glad I had a PC while going through chemo-therapy as it was a great distraction and helped a lot!

[TechJumper]

Not to venture of my topic, but did anyone personally know Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?

TechJumper

[dawgtuff]

A Fire Captain that started in the Commadore(sp)era.He sold me a P60 system,and after I got a good handle on Win95......it was off to the races!!! Actually,my interest is how these dang things work and how to "tweak" them to max performance and stability.

[lasa168]

Porn, porn, and porn.

[pickel]

First there was cars, then bikes, then women,
then guns. Now ,that I'm about worn out , I sit and stare at my monitor and use my cane to get around http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif LMOL

[Szech]

When I was a youngster (about five or six years old), I would read anything that I could find in the house. One day, I found a reference guide for GW-BASIC programming, and was interested. When we got a used 8086, I made my first program, and my interest in computers grew from there. Really wish I could find some of those old programs, some of them were classic. I remember making one that was something like:
10 cls
20 print "What is your name"
30 input A$
40 if A$="Shannon" print "You are stupid!"
50 system

Ha! My sister sure wasn't happy about that one! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/biggrin.gif I should look through the stack of 5 1/4" floppies for my old disk.

~~Edit: Hey Joel! I remember making multiple bootup menus too! Did that feature come with Dos 6.2 or 6.0? I don't remember... but I do remember the options I made:
1) Dos - Regular
2) Dos - Maximum memory (Only loaded himem.sys, dos=high and lastdrive = c)
3) Windows
4) System maintenance (would run Virus scan, Scandisk, Defrag, and memmaker).

Ah memories... The bittersweet reminicense of what used to be.

[This message has been edited by Szech (edited 11-05-2000).]

[TechJumper]

lasa168


Your perverted humor is not wanted or needed in the SysOpt forums. It is nothing but a scratch on the integrity of this message board, and a turn off for many of the members. I fail to see the humor in such comments, and would appreciate you removing them from my thread. If I see that again you can expect an email to both mntsnow and socalgal regarding blockage of your computer from these forums.


TechJumper

[NDC]

I second that motion..... http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[TechJumper]

Nice old thread- just keeping it going http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

Mike

Post your story here.

[darrelld]

I really didn't have much interest in computers until I did a remodel for someone at HP. In his spare time he built systems, so I had him put one together for me. I knew nothing at the time, so I didn't know what I wanted or needed. He put together a cyrix 166, 32 meg ram, win95. What a piece of ****.
The good thing about it was I spent alot of time fixing it, the sick part is I got excited when it screwed up because I would have to look for a fix.
I went to win98 when it came out, and thats when I started to learn about the hardware, because my machine slowed down with it.
I spent a year screwing up and fixing windows because I wanted to know all I could about it.
Since that first pc, I have built many systems for others and the guy at HP now calls me when he has a problem.

[lasa168]

Could not resist TechJumper. I give you an honest answer and you do not like it. That is just to bad buddy. Be sure to contact the administration now, and go through with your threat. Later. One question for you? Are you a right wing Republican?