How did you start your computer skills?

[Swordfish]

to learn Pascal, i needed a PC with Turbo Pascal....

at that time it was:

Windows 95, P100,
8mb edo, some via chipset mobo, at case.
1gb fujitsu hdd,
soundblaster awe64, creative sb10 spk. some kbd, some mouse,
a generic black n white monitor.

that was my first baby steps into the computing world.

Hardware part started when my sister and me asked an assembler to upgrade the 8mb edo to 64mb so that Windows NT 4.0 could be installed. He asked for a huge sum.

But instead i bought the modules 4*16mb but didn't know how to install them. . When we asked the assembler to do the installing part, he plainly refused and said he would charge double the amount we paid for the modules. I just showed him the middle finger and went abt searching on the internet on how to install one. Finally i did it myself.

Thereafter, i have been the boss.

To tell you the truth, it took me around 1 year to get past the setup screen of Windows 95.

I was really scared to do anything with PC.

and i only used play pacman,solitaire,such lowly games....shh..2 mb s3 trio then.

gaming stuff had to be on the atari in the ol days.

[genesound]

Sometime around 1985 I bought a box of junk for $100. By that night I had a working 8088. After performing a few repairs to power supplies and pushing all the chips back in the mobos... the other mobo in the box came up as well... I traded a mobo for a Seagate 10MB HD, full height, and then someone gave me a daisy wheel printer... I later ran QEMM and DesqView as a task switcher for Wordperfect and Lotus 123 so I could cut and paste between apps... whew that was a lifetime ago... Of course that was well after my Apple IIe... but that doesn't count... They were a packaged deal, after all....

[RamonGTP]

I don't remember the year, but I first got into computers when I got my very first one, which was a 486 DX/33... It came with 4MB of ram, 512k onboard video, no sound, 170MB HD, Floppy, no CD-ROM, and stricly ISA slots... When I finally got rid of it, it had 16MB of ram, 133MHz overdrive processor, original sound blaster card, 8x cd rom drive, and a 250MB HDD in addition to the original 170.

[Tor]

I think I was about 8 years old. My dad had an old Amiga maybe? It was dual tape drives, one with the OS and one with programs. I used to play Buck Rogers! Then we got a 286 in around '89, (paid like $5000 for it!) and I just started playing with it, Bards Tale, Commander Keen, I could even play Doom! I just started tinkering around, reading, talking to people. I could use old dos based terminals to dial into the University and surf the net using webcrawler in a text base, before it was really popular. Then I ended up killing the 286, (thats when I decided I wanted to know what was on the inside) so we upgraded to a Pentium 90, and I've been going since then, reading a little here and there and tinkering.... (I'm 23 now, so its been about 15 years I've been playing around with em.) I actually got hired by my High School when I graduated to help with the PC and network upgrade from Macs before I headed off to college, I got a degree in Electronics Engineering Tech so I'm more into the hardware aspect of things, I haven't really kept up lately as my current occupation isn't directly related to computers, I work on electro-mechanical test equipment. I do agree with Terminator though, the best way to learn is to just do it. I'm a very very hands on learner myself!Here's what I've had for PC's.

Amiga?
286
Pentium 90
Pentium 233
Athlon 800
P3 933
P4 2.4
P4 2.8
Cant tell you my current CPU due to NDA.

Tor

[scottluebke2003]

My first time was in Aviano, Italy. Its an Air Base occupied by the US. A guy in my shop wanted to dump off his old comp, and I wanted to buy one. However, the comp did not work correctly. So the deal was made that I would fix it, but not pay until it worked. However, i had never opened a comp in my life. But my boss had, so we worked on that thing for a week for so. I took it home, played with it for a few months, used it regularly, then the Air Force sent me to Kuwait. During those 3 months, I had ample time to sit in front of the computer @ www.tomshardware.com and research all the parts to build myself one monster of a machine. After 3 months, and approx 50 hours of component research, I purchased all the parts, and build that baby from scratch. I was very nervous about pushing the power button when it was assembled. I jsut knew it was gonna blow up, but it didnt, it worked great, and still does. Since then i have taken up PC building as a hobby! I love it, its like cars...but without oil.

[Eric Legge]

In 1997, I bought a computer from the biggest mail-order vendors in the UK mainly for the MS Office suite software.

It was advertised as upgradable from 133MHz non-MMX to 200MHz MMX, but it turned out that it would only run the processor that it came with on an itegrated Gemlight motherboard.

That got me determined never to be taken for a ride again, and I began reading Computer Shopper magazine and anything else I could on computers on the web.

Eric,
http://www.legge40.freeserve.co.uk/BuyerBeware.htm

[Baddog]

I was facinated by the floppy disk...I wanted one...now I have CDs running out of my ears. Now easing into overclocking.

[Braiii]

Since, I already had a laptop and had been dissecting Windows since 3.1 I was a pretty good Windows Guru by just what I had figured out on my own.

When it came to building my own computer I turned to a cool magazine that I had picked up in 1998...Maximum PC - How To Build a PC. Though at that time I never built my own PC, I had no need for one since I had my laptop. Couple years later I had a continuing subscription to Maximum PC and the thoughts of building a PC grew.

I bought a nice big Antec case that came with a 400wt PSU and it sat in my office for about a year until I thought the prices were low enough and the processors were fast enough to hold me up for a few years.

Somewhere in early 2002 I found SysOpt.com, I don't remember how I came across it but I did...

I built my computer based on my knowledge and the knowledge of it's users...now thanks to everyone I'm a even bigger geek as I can put a PC together with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. Ever tried that with a AMD Heatsink Fan and trying to lock the bracket? LOL - It's hard!

Thanks SysOpt!

- Rob

[killer_teddy]

There has been a computer in the house since I was young but I only got into building and upgrading over the last couple of years. My Dad was too tight to buy me a PC so we decided to build one but ended up wussing out and buying a cheap one from a computer fair I tried upgrading it and stuff but it got too out of date, so I built a new one earlier this year with the help of sysopt. Now I build and upgrade comps for mates and family and soon my Dad wants to build one with the goal of making a bit of profit.

[gtaylor]

Originally posted by Terminator

Dragon 32

Dragon 32? So it wasn't just me! Excellent! Then a couple of Amigas before commadore's death, then on to PCs.

It all started at the age of 8 though, when I managed to fix a really old computer at my lower school (might have been a Link 81, might not). I then got called out of lessons to fix computers all around the school until I left for middle school only about 5 computers, you school kids now have all the breaks).

After that, I had a steady progression through home computers until I got a part time job as a technician at a local computer manufacturer at the age of 14, and I am now a graduate, and a sys admin.

EDIT.

I'm getting an Amiga back though next year when our house purchase goes through. My mum has been on PCs for 4 years now and stopped using her Amiga A2000 a couple of years ago and offered it to me. Fantastic! I still have 5 disk boxes full of games to play. Kick off 2 is gonna annoy the wife something chronic, still, at least its different to championship manager!

[leprechaun_40]

My Dad worked with IBM Mainframes, 360 and 370 series in the late '60's until about the 80's, I was totally facinated. I soon learned how to actually mount a drive, mount a disc drive (those huge ones that you could actually change the platter stack in ), I learned some basic commands and was actually capable of running the entire system by myself after a few months ( was just a teenager, about 15 or 16 then). I then moved to PC's when they first came out, I had a Visual Technologys 8086 processor machine, no hdd, DOS 2.11 and have constantly moved up from there to where I build not only my own machines, but have started to build for others and charge for it. Hopefully with a bit of luck and some sweat, I'll actually make a living doing that!

I have taken a few classes, and would like to take more, maybe even get a degree and a certification or so, but, sadly, I also have to work for a living and don't have the money at the moment to go back to school. But, I will, someday

[SPEEDO]

A friend of mine gave me an AMD 100 MHz machine with 3.1 on it back in 95, I've been hooked ever since.

Wait til I get my hands on him...........................LOL

[rraehal]

Back in the early days my uncle gave me an Apple IIe. He had just bought a 386. I spent some time playing on his color PC and was facinated. Soon after my dad bought an 8088 for $20.00. I had to learn DOS 5 to configure to startup make directories, back up floppies, etc...

I was handed a pile of computer parts around a year later that became my first PC. It was a 386 with 1 MB RAM. I bought Windows 3.1 and DOS 6.22.

Later when 95 was released I had a 486 given to me and I learned about games. I soon wanted to play multi-player games and my hobby became and learning obsession.

I went to school for an Associates degree and got the paper to prove I knew something about computers how ever little it is.

Now I work on them 40 hours a week with a company that provides the latest technology.

[ATI RADEON 8500]

Srarted by playing games on APPLE computer with the 51/2 floppy disk when I was about 6. Stopped using computer for long time.

Around 12 start geting into computers because of games like simcity.

At 14 it took my life. Played game like crazy. Also started to explore inside my computer and other people's computer. Learning on my own.

Now I'm 20 and I'm completely hooked. Learning on my own and asking question on fourms. Modded my computers. And more heavy gaming.

[Magua]

I grew up with computers, from a 286 onwards. Used to do minor upgrades to my computers at home, video cards, hard drives, etc. I was pretty good with computers when compared to the rest of the population, but not great. Three months ago I assembled my first, and I will never go back. I now read lots of online sites/forums regularly.