My Computing Journey

I grew up in a middle class home in Ireland. We were very lucky in many ways. Six kids and for the most part a single income must have been a significant challenge for my parents. There was always technology though, from a gigantic VHS recording camera (before CamCorders were a thing and there was one of those in time too) to a BetaMax player and then personal computers. There were plenty of small electronics too for my young mind to access with screwdrivers. Things often came apart pretty well but didn't go back together all of the time. My Dad wasn't always happy about this but the screwdrivers were never taken away so maybe that says something. Of course, he didn't stop buying tech or gadgets either so maybe it wasn't noticed.

The presence of computers in my early years and some encouragement prompted my choice of college degree and ultimately my career so far. Here are some random memories...

In primary school one of the teachers got a computer with educational games. Each class was allowed a time or two to play the games, I don't recall it being a regular thing. The idea that you could play games on a screen was pretty cool, this was before I knew about games consoles but well after they were a thing. As my older brothers grew up and got into college they started to use computers for their work - a drawing board was replaced by a computer screen. In addition to serious applications like AutoCAD and 3D Studio, games like Doom, Quake and Descent made it into the house. Serious in a different way. These were very different games to the ones I was allowed play on the Sega Megadrive. Ecco the Dolphin didn't have a BFG...

There were a variety of computers in the house over the years in various different shapes and sizes - a 286 (I think) that ran the OS from a 5.25 inch floppy disk. Back when floppy disks were actually floppy. The black screen with orange text was mesmerizing. I can still hear the beep of the computer, the read head of the disk and see the flashing cursor in my minds eye. There was also a word processor - an assembly of a printer, keyboard and small enough LCD screen which my Mam used for writing a thesis for a postgraduate qualification before returning to work. That single income with six kids obviously prompted the need. Embarrassingly, I also used that word processor to send letters to a pen pal. Back then it must have stunk of privilege but I was none the wiser. I also for some reason wanted a Palm Pilot when I was in my early teens. I can't remember what I used it for other than to be a nerd... 

The coolest gadget from over the years was one of the most simple in ways. A Casio programmable calculator. Every so often we'd remember it and take it down from the shelf and break out the mildewing manual that came with it. It must have been from around the same time I was born in the 80s. Games could be programmed on it using BASIC. I remember the Golf game being fun. Hand typing the games could be challenging if there was a data entry error. The keys were tiny. Of course, my brothers had to "hack" the code to make the shots infinite distance and win in one go too. I wonder if that's still around somewhere...

Like the hand me down clothes, I inherited old computers from my brothers as I was completing secondary school. Over the years there were DOS PCs, Windows 3.11, Windows 95 & 98. I got in trouble for replacing the Win98 start screen with one that said WinBlowz :D - I could never figure out what was so great about Windows NT but of course these were single PCs, not on a network. I also remember the first Windows 2000 machine we got in the house and my brother going through driver and DLL hell trying to get everything to work. What else... oh yeah, SoundBlaster sound cards! Rifling through three PC carcasses to make one. Figuring out that different frequency RAM wouldn't work together and having a beast of a PC that not only a 20Gb C: drive but also an additional 10Gb D: drive. I think that was one of the first Pentium chips. No Turbo button for me anymore!

That machine provided great learning. That was where I installed my first distro of Linux. I was working a part time job during the summer and saved enough to go to CompuStore and buy a boxed set of RedHat Linux 6.2. There were loads of CDs with it, pretty much every RPM imaginable. This was before the days where you could yum or apt get things from your dedicated internet connection. RedHat was pretty user friendly compared to installing SlackWare for the first time. I had to dual boot with Windows 98 and use Outlook to reach out for help to a Linux User Group. They didn't always appreciate that. Aside from being clueless, I was a fairly asinine kid. Still, knowing the innards of computers and the internet gave me an edge when it came to college I think so the experience was useful. I've forgotten more than I remember about all of these things.

Over the years I've done some cool things (well, what I thought were cool things anyway) with computers. I can't recall where the memory surfaced from but at one of my first proper jobs we put a 42 inch plasma screen TV in the lobby of the office. This ran a PowerPoint slideshow on a Fedora Core box which I think was in the server room. That was a seriously long VGA cable. Surprisingly, OpenOffice did a decent job of displaying the PowerPoint. We loaded the slideshows via SSH. Pretty sure that plasma screen burned in very well over time. Quite cool the things you can do with a bit of technology and some creativity.

Somewhere along the way I have lost this inquisitiveness I had with technology and computers. I'm more likely to use something out of the box now than hack it together. I think this needs to change.