Computer History

[landbeforetimelover]

I thought it would be great to have a place where you could talk about everything that's happened between you and computers.  From day 1, what type of computer did you have?  How did you get it?  How did you advance through the computer world?  Tell your story from day 1 with computers to the present time.  I hope there will be some interest.  Anyway, I'll start:

Let’s see….I got my first computer at the age of 5.  It had a 1.5gb HD, 32mb of ram, a 150mhz Pentium processor, and windows 95.  It was a gift from my grandma for my fifth birthday.  About 2 months after I got it, something went wrong.  It just wouldn’t turn on anymore.  Frustrated, the next time I went to a garage sale I see a book “upgrading and repairing PC’s” and I nab it for $1.  It had around 350 pages and I read it all.  Took me about 4 months, but I did eventually read it.  After I had finished the whole thing, I decided I knew what was wrong with the computer.  The power supply was out.  What do ya know, it was.  I told mom what we needed.  She was skeptical at first, but she bought the part I told her to anyways.  After I got it, I installed it and the computer worked perfectly afterwards!  About 6 months later, I upgraded the computer to windows 98 using a disk I also got from a garage sale.  When I say upgrade, I don’t mean I just popped in the disk and it kept all my files and crap.  I didn’t have the upgrade disk.  I had to format it from scratch.  God, that was hard, but I did it.  After I had gotten it upgraded, I remember being really pissed off because when I applied my desktop background, it tiled on the screen.  I was so mad that I wanted to go back to windows 95.  I eventually did figure it out though after a few minutes of dinking around.  For my seventh birthday, I got a newer computer from my grandma.  It had a 2gb HD, 64mb of ram, a 266mhz mmx processor, and windows 98.  Unfortunately, my grandma didn’t know anything about computers (and she still doesn’t BTW) and she bought a lemon.  The thing took like 20 minutes to boot and the HD light was always lit up.  Man, that computer was a piece of s***!  Anyways, shortly afterwards I got my first laptop.  It was an old laptop with a Pentium 100mhz processor, 16mb of ram, a 350mb hard drive, and it had windows 95.  It was awesome except for the battery not working.  Around the ages 4-7, all I ever wanted was a go cart. It was at this age that I switched my wanting for a go cart to a new laptop.  Anyway, I went to a thrift store one day with my mom at around 8 and I saw an old Pentium computer.  It had around 150mhz, 64mb of ram, and a 2.5gb HD, and came with windows 95.  It was only $3 so I decided to get it.  I got it home and I plugged it in.  Surprisingly, it worked well.  Anyway, I don’t know how, but I got my hands on some ram.  I think I bought them from a garage sale, but I knew what they were when I saw them!  I had no idea what density they were or anything, nor did I know that they had to be put in a certain order.  It was one of those old SIMM’s that had the two notches.  Anyway, I had 4 ports total so I removed the two chips and replaced them with the new ones.  I booted the computer and it totaled out to be 128mb of ram.  I was so excited!  I had doubled my ram!  Feeling excited and wonderful, I decided to put in a game CD I had to see if I could play it.  It wouldn’t read at all.  The CD drive was out.  I was depressed, but that wasn’t the end of it.  Soon afterwards, I found a really old computer at a garage sale for free.  It had a CD drive in it so I took it.  Then I installed it in the computer that needed it.  It was like a 4X CD-ROM drive.  LOL.

So anyways, it went on like this for several years until I had over 50 computers.  Needless to say, my mom was freaked out.  By the age of 11, I had over 70 computers total….all of them working.  I was becoming very skilled at repairing them so I decided to open a computer repair business.  I officially opened my repair business June 4, 2003 at the age of 12 years old.  I didn’t know much and I must say that until I was 10 I had broken waaaaaaaay more computers than I had fixed, but I started out from scratch and now here’s where I’m at today:

I own my own successful computer repair business.  I have several hundred dedicated clients who will only come to me with their computer issues because I’m honest, cheap, and reliable.  I have over 200 computers now and that number changes almost daily.  I get new ones, sell old ones and the cycle repeats over and over.  I get so much repair business that I’m lucky if I ever get my homework done.  I have my own home server that’s only accessibly via my home network and it’s not open to the web.  It has a capacity of 40TB(that’s about 40,000GB) and is the main backbone of my computer community.  I built my server at the age of 14 when I became interested in networking.  My server is nothing but a huge collection of computers strung together by a large hub via Ethernet cables.  Best part is, they’re easily upgradable.  I have 4 servers to date; my main server (the one with 40TB), my LBT server (the one most of you know and love), my hacking server (where I host things I would rather not mention here), and my client server (this is where I store vital security updates that I can provide to my clients who use my services).  I have come a long way in computers, but let’s hear your story.  It may not be as long and involved as mine, but it would still be nice to hear.

[Kor]

Mine is far simpler.  The first pc I had (and still have in a box in the closet) was a tandy 1000ex that I used ms-dos 2.11 on it.  I got one of those build your own computer books, either the 286 or 386 ones, not sure which and read it here and there for a few years or so.  The next one I had was one I assembled myself, a 486, I think it was an sx, not sure of the last 2 letters, whichever one had a math coprosseser that was non functional.  I saved up money and bought the parts over a 6 months or a year, not sure of the time it took.  I used ms-dos 3.2 on it, then with succeeding computers put on windows 3.11, briefly used windows 95 that someone gave me, disliked it.  Eventually got windows 98se then xp.  

After that all the motherboards would last about a year to a year and a half with the hard drives lasting about 2-4 months.  Monitors lasting about a year to a year and a  half.  After years it eventually, for some reason, ended with the current, what I call pc1, that has been working for years a 1.2 gigahertz and the the hard drive, the hard drive is a year or so younger then the pc.  The current crt has also lasted years, the others previous to this one would last about a year to a year and a half.  The only thing that has worn out or broken on it is the floppy drive and dvd-rom drive, both replaced and one of the plug in cooling expansion bay things.  

Got a newer pc a year ago to play video games on, I don't web surf on it.  The only non video game stuff I want to watch some of the lbt songs that won't play in sinc on this pc since it's cpu is to slow, or if I want or need to do some screen grabs from an lbt movie or tv episode.  It's only a 3.2 gigahertz single core, but it can play all the games I own currently.  It came with vista basic installed with it, though I may get around to getting a larger hard drive and putting xp on it.  I got it from hp, it was one of those low price companies that hp absorbed.  It was the same price or a bit less then what I was going to pay to buy the individual parts so thought I'd rather buy this one and not have to assemble everything.   I gradually upgraded it's ram to 2gig and put in a 8500geforce card into it.  

I have also ordered an eeepc 4g surf, that is not here yet.  It'll be handy since I can take it and do some computer stuff in the closet with it when the neighbors play loud music or tv.  Usually in the closest if I plug in a fan it drowns out their music or loud tv.  I need to get a 20-25 foot networking cable if I want to websurf in the closest with it.  I may eventually get an l ldc monitor if the 7inch screen is to annoying to use since I"m not going to haul a crt into the closet and back out again.

That is my pretty dull story.

[Mumbling]

I pretty much fell in love the first time I saw a computer. Seriously. Remember I am younger then most of you, it was when I was 5 years old at my primary school. There was a game where you could fit little balls into the correct hole. Nothing special I know, but I seriously never had seen a computer before.. eh that was 1998 =D. When I came home I asked my parents for a computer, about one month later we had one.

I seriously cannot remember what computer it was.. Somehow, it got lost. It was really strange. My boyfriend now has my 'old computer' which I thought actually was our first one.. But my dad keeps telling there was one before. Then why can I not remember it? Anyways.. The one I remember was a windows 98. It always was on my parent's room and I couldn't be on it longer then half an hour, afraid it would make my eyes worse.

We didn't had internet connection either.. When I was six and a half we got internet, the one you have to use your phone for.. It was protected with a password and I was really pissed off with that because I came to know what I could do with it. I wanted to learn more but I didn't have the chance to.

I asked my boyfriend now he sais that my 'old computer' had got 8gb HD, 256 MB RAM ehh I don't know about the processor and it had a 48x disc drive.

After that one really got old.. in 2002 or something, and me and my brother wanted to play newer games, not working on 98 my parents bought a new computer with windows xp this time. It was quite a good one, nothing really special on it. It could burn cd's and that's what my parents wanted. I got the old one on my room(if I cleaned my room ) Of course they were going to give it to me but they wanted me to do something first .. lol

After some time the same thing happened, we wanted a new computer so that we could play more games.. But this time it could be downstairs instead of on their room, we were really happy with that. So now we had 3 computers.. One old one on my room where I played some old games on so now and then, or made some homework. One on my parents room, and the newest one downstairs. That 'new one' had some problems with starting though. It was very anoying.. Some screens keep on popping up every time we started, although it worked fine.

In 2006 the computer on my parents room died, it's motherboard was broken. They decided to buy a new one and remove the old one.. It was sooo fast, that I was kind of jealous we did not have such a computer downstairs.. Soon after that my mum got a job and got herself a laptop. Windows ME , 20gb HD and 128 RAM. Few weeks ago she got a new one with Vista. I could make the laptop I wanted it to be.. Now it had got 80GB HD and windows xp on it, so much better.

I told them I really wanted a new computer downstairs.. well.. after a lot of fighting about that, it happened. Thats how the computer on my room was replaced with the one who first was downstairs, and we got a new one. Now my boyfriend has that one that was bein replaced.. He likes it.

Now that's basicly it.. =D We havent got that phone connection anymore btw.. We switched to 'eh how do you call it' in 2005..

[Kor]

Maybe dsl or cable internet?

[Mumbling]

ah yes, dsl

[Petrie.]

First computer in the house I remember would be about 1991 or 1992 using MS-Dos because I know we had at least one in the family before we moved in 1992.  No clue what it was because I was too young to know or care.  I was hardly on it anyway.  I remember some Disney game with Mickey Mouse but that's about it.  When your dad is a software engineer you can see why there was a computer in the house so early.

Our next one was a Gateway2000 with this huge tower in about 1995 I think.  Next one was home built about 1998, so there were two in the house.  I started my internet love about the same time, but having only dialup limited my time because we only had so much time a month.  Somewhere around 1999 my dad made another do-it-yourself system and the old Gateway was given to my aunt.

In 02 I got my first computer when I started college.  Its a Dell...and I don't remember the original specs.  Windows XP Home...maybe 512mb of ram.  That computer is still in the family and has been upgraded countless times.  Original harddrive is still kicking.  60gb was big at that time.

I switched to a laptop in 04 moving away to another college.  Another Dell.  The Inspirion 5150.  That has been nothing but trouble...three motherboard replacements when the sound chip broke.  I got a new laptop about a year ago...Inspirion E1505 and stopped using the older one.  This one has been flawless (thank god).

That's about it.  Four computers in the house.