How Did You Become Interested in Computers?

OmegaWolf747 · 2025-01-25T00:57:04+00:00

For me, my true love affair with computers began 31 years ago in my tenth grade touch typing class, when the clunky old IBM electric typewriters we'd been using were spirited away over Christmas vacation and replaced with a LAN of IBM PS/2 Model 25s. To a modern person, those machines are clunky old beige boxes with less processing power than a modern smartwatch, but to my teenage self, those things were space age!

dave

My parents claimed they could not afford to buy me a computer.

PaulBunyan

One of the math classrooms at my high school got a computer terminal in 1968 that could dial into a time-share system. The math club, among other things, taught computer programming using that terminal. I looked at the terminal with disdain for a couple of years, vowing never to give in to its calling. By 1970 I gave it a try, discovered I could program, which was convenient because up to that point I had no clue what my profession would be. Built my first 8080-based PC from a kit in 1978, Now I’m up to my 8th PC built from parts, though a few PCs along the way were bought off-the-rack. Started programming in BASIC, job-wise most of my work was in Fortran, COBOL, and S/370 assembly language. For personal programming, I’ve settled on C++ exclusively since the late 80s.

mikecintel

I became interested in computers when I was in 5th grade and my parents bought me a computer. I remember I was crying because I only had a box, and I thought that was my gift only LOL. Then I found out it was a keyboard, and I use the computer, and I liked it a lot. I remember I start to use Word Perfect 5x in DOS mode. My first software was Windows 3x.

markuswarren

Got a 48k ZX Spectrum, which got me interested. From there I ended up doing a 2 year college programme, then onto actual jobs doing IT, software testing, and that's where I'm at today, and been messing around with Macs for 33 years (last 15 or so has included iPhone and iPad too)

nekkidtruth

It was 1994. My father worked for the city and they were getting rid of some old machines. He brought one home thinking I'd enjoy tinkering with it. I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but it used 5 1/4 floppies for pretty much everything.

In 1995, I saw an ad in the Radio Shack flyer for an AST computer running Windows 95. I begged my parents and finally they bought it for me. The rest is history because I just kept upgrading and tinkering and learning. My brain was like a sponge for anything computer related I could throw at it.

JanJ

OmegaWolf747 Wanted to do Video Editing....
I had done 2" Quad Editing on a CDL PEC 102 Editing system in the 1970's with Ampex AVR2's.. .. I did many Commercials and shows in 70's & 80"s.. That worked off a Data General Nova 4 with paper tape, core memory, and an absolutely HUGE Hard Drive made by Company that became Seagate...
In the 2000's, via **multiple jobs, I had progressed Past CDL, CMX, ACE, Mach 2000, and others... to Adobe and Avid, and a smattering of Discrete Logic editors!
I was supporting Discrete, Avid SD & HD SDI at my TV Network Job at ABC, and was doing HDV Premiere at home...and found an issue with Dissolves at home in "CS1", and posted it... and got a strange email IM from site I was at.... and that led to my being part of the ADOBE BETA TEST Group for Premiere Pro... That continued till CS6. I eventually did under the table file conversions at work using the Beta software of AME & Premiere PRO at ABC when they shot footage that Avid or Discreet couldn't import! They didn't know it was happening...
That led to Encore (Which I was OK with, and AME & PS, which I was OK with, and AE, Which I had NO Business being with at all!!! AE & PS Relied on RGB Color Space!!! Video is YUV Color Space! Only Premiere and Encore 'groups' at ADOBE really understood YUV Color Space... Others went off and developed with ADOBE RGB Color Space, which was better than RGB Color Space, but still had limitations.... and wasn't as good as YUV, but number-crunched easier than YUV..... and I think that's what prevented AE & PS from going YUV...
But I was part of Beta Site until the start of CS7, which then became Something Else with monthly $$$$....
I was OK with Yearly $$ for upgrade, but not Monthly$$
And I bailed!!!!f As many of the other Beta Testers did!!!
I'm still running CS 6 Master Suite!!! Which is good for HS 1920x1080/30

Bombtrad

Doing an Applied Math degree in canberra, Australia, my first run in with computers was on a Burroughs 8500, punched cards, as a student trying to run Math routines, but not really successfully.

First real computer interaction ws purchasing, installing and running up a DEC PDP 11/45 with 128K (gasp) memory toi be the first computer driven word processing unit in Australian government. The joys of assembler and RSX-11M.

And the whole setup cost over $149,00 in 1987 dollars.
DEC had never used their PDP for this work before,, saying that their PDP 11's usually were used as Input and Output attached to bigger mainframes. and we didn't have a clue. But we did make it work!!

Even the workstations were DEC units, I can't remember which, usually used for data I/O but modified, and from memory called WPS 11 work stations.

This was 1986/87

At home I've had PC's starting with Dos 4.1 amd all ever since. Currently a Lenovo all-in-one, Win 11. Still run a Win XP and DOS 6.22 on 2 old PC's for retro gaming. The Duke Rules!!!

dave

Bombtrad

The workstations were probably WT78s (basically a PDP-8 with word processing support). WPS-11 ran on the 11/45 to control the WT78s.

takeahike

I was married to a vexatious litigant 😬 and since I was the lawyer I had to do all the paperwork, and I just got tired of typing things over and over again when they didn’t come out quite right (I had to do all the typing too of course), and I of course knew that with a computer you could edit to your heart’s delight before finalizing anything. So it was in 1989 that I got a 286/12 with this DOS based office suite and went to work with it–it became a strong interest of mine (I still have and can and do sometimes run that DOS based Eight-In-One office suite on my current Windows 11 system using DOSBox). Within six months of that I had gotten an expected layoff from my job of five years. I got a year contract working as house counsel for a small insurance carrier but the contract was not renewed, so because of my interest in computers I wound starting my own computer sales and service biz that I had for the next 24 years.

BTW, thank god I got divorced from that nut! Take my advice–don’t date and certainly don’t marry one of those sue-happy women!

The 286 was a Mitsuba with a 14″ 640×480 color VGA monitor and a 20MB MFM hard drive and 640k RAM purchased in 1989 that looked like this.😀 I upgraded to a 386/25 within a year, wound up installing Windows 3.0 on it after upgrading it to its maximum 4MB RAM, and the rest is history.

Warzau

It was a movie 2001. I saw it when I was a kid and became enamored. Of course in the 70's computers were not available for many. My class got a Texas Instrument Computer and well the class just played games. Then our school partnered with local devry and we got apple II computers to "Program" on. In college i finally got one a 386 compaq. Since then I built a handful of computers. But in my older age Im lazy and prob will get a prebuilt again.

Sparkchaser

Warzau Since then I built a handful of computers. But in my older age Im lazy and prob will get a prebuilt again.

Yep, I gave up the building computers, one computer ago. It's still chugging along. I really don't need much, no gaming, no more engineering work.

Hydraglass

Sparkchaser All of my computers up to 2001 were hand built by me - from my 286 with 1M of RAM, my 486 with 4M of RAM, my P2 with 64M of RAM and P4 with 512M of RAM, all bought in pieces and built up... then I discovered sitting on my recliner with a laptop was a lot nicer - so I had a thinkpad R31, Dell inspirion, Acer, Dell Latitude and now a Dell Vostro 5581. I still have a desktop computer with dual monitors in the house (Lenovo Thinkstation PX with dual Intel Xeon Gold - didn't build it myself or pay much for it - it was salvage from a CAD business that was closing - it was probably like $20k new - I paid $1500) - but I can't see myself ever building another PC for "fun" now --- for one thing the tech has moved on beyond my "best practices" knowledge - I wouldn't know a good motherboard or stick of DDR5 from crap, I might not match memory speed or PCIx bus lanes or whatever properly - I wouldn't know what power supplies would match well with what video cards, what type of cooling might be needed based on case shape and size, etc -- it's all the job of someone more up to date and skilled on those fronts to come up with the best solutions now.

Donut417

Back in the mid 90s when my sister and I were entering school, my parents had a decision to make. Buy encyclopedias or buy a Computer. They figured the computer could do more including to the stuff of an encyclopedia. So we got our first computer. Microsoft Flight Simulator 5 was the first PC game I played. I was hooked ever since.

Though I dont game as much anymore. While I have built machines for gaming in the past. I kinda move to Apple products, not really a Microsoft guy anymore.

antdude

Donut417 Back in the mid 90s when my sister and I were entering school, my parents had a decision to make. Buy encyclopedias or buy a Computer. They figured the computer could do more including to the stuff of an encyclopedia.

But did you get an encyclopedia for that computer? 😉 I did with my custom built 486 DX2/66 PC with its brand new SB16 ISA, CD-ROMs (e.g., Encarta?) and their drive, etc. bundle!

Donut417

antdude Yes, my dad bought some software when he bought the computer.

ugly95

antdude But did you get an encyclopedia for that computer? 😉 I did with my custom built 486 DX2/66 PC with its brand new SB16 ISA, CD-ROMs (e.g., Encarta?) and their drive, etc. bundle!

There's nothing quite like doing your homework to the sound of a CD-ROM drive making disc seeking noises as you browse through Encarta.

Of course, one thing that hasn't changed in all these years is printers failing to work when you need to print your homework.

edin

Got my First computer in 1998, and then in 1999 I got to move that computer in my room when my parents got a new computer. Along with dial-up (our ISP allowed two connections at the same time (had two phone lines) Had dial-up until early 2005 when we got that cable co that finally just got to cancel for fiber several weeks ago.

Around first grade in the late 90s. Tinkering with the IBM Eduquest, and Compaq DeskPros in school lol. And after a few years was tinkering with the networking side of things by the 3rd grade learning myself going through files on other computers in the school, Printing things in random classrooms etc haha.

And by 6th grade was running my own proxy service for others to circumvent the website blocks, as the school stayed on top of obvious domains that were using proxy services, so what did I do? I bought a domain name that was very close to the schools own website, evetually after a year it got blocked, BUT kept making subdomains to it which just worked. Prob had about 30 or so people using it lol.

By 9th grade had moved to Remote desktop as using proxy services was in the school rules as a NO-NO. I remember the principal catching me on MySpace and he was like you cant be using a proxy and I'm like I'm not I'm on my home computer lol. Took about 6 months but that made its way into the handbook as well haha.

All through elementary, Middle, and high school I was the computer repair guy, getting out of class various times to go to other class rooms to fix computer issues. 3rd grader being in a 5th grade class room reinstalling a screwed up install of Windows 2000, installing netware, Accelerated Reader (If anyone remembers that) knowing the passwords etc to log everything in lol. One of the reasons for this is the school IT was LAZY up to 6 months just to fix a single classroom computer of even the most simple problem. Even the most hated teachers/principals by everyone was friendly to me.

Even got to bring my own laptop into school around 2008/2009 and was allowed to type my own notes/work (This was before school issued laptops was a thing.) Only reason I was told I couldn't anymore was due to various students also wanting to which the school couldn't keep up with that. Was fun while it lasted, that random usb cable going into my backpack plugged into my Blackberry curve for data, no one ever knew.

From my first computer, and then now

monchis

I think my dad took me to a CompUSA and then I discovered computers there and was interested. What a great question, wish I could remember it more clearly. I definitely recall convincing my parents to give me cash so I could build a computer and I definitely remember using dslreports.com community to get the guidance to build one hehe I think I was like 14 years old.

antdude

monchis I think my dad took me to a CompUSA and then I discovered computers there and was interested. What a great question, wish I could remember it more clearly. I definitely recall convincing my parents to give me cash so I could build a computer and I definitely remember using dslreports.com community to get the guidance to build one hehe I think I was like 14 years old.

Are you still building computers? 😉

monchis

antdude I am not 😛 but I have worked in tech most of my work life now. My parents have no idea how much of an impact they made for my career allowing me to explore this tech passion as a kid.

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