This is one of the best pieces of literature I've read in a long time.
I have had a relationship with computing like many of the commenters here. I remember our kindergarten teacher letting us take turns grounding ourselves under the keyboard of an Apple IIe. I can't explain it but I could tell from that moment that I had a thing for computing technology.
I remember playing games at a friend's house on an IBM PC. Her dad worked there and we would just mess around and had no idea what we were doing in the game. I just loved interacting with the thing.
I remember long nights playing games on my cousin's C64. Playing Archon and some racing game. Doing basic programming.
I begged my parents for a computer and we eventually got one in 1993. It cost around $2,000 back then and was 33 MHz, had 8 MB RAM, and had a 207 MB hard drive. No sound card, CD ROM, or printer at the time. Game over from that point on. I knew I had to do something in computing technology for a living.
Things seem so figured out these days. I wonder if kids get that same feeling of novelty we got back then?
"I wonder if kids get that same feeling of novelty we got back then?"
My question exactly. My son recently saved up his lawnmowing money and bought himself a couple-year old HTC phone. We put cyanogenmod on it and he's figuring out which games will run on it and how to extend the battery life and I think, maybe, he's having a similar sort of experience. I don't know though, it doesn't seem the same as sharing floppy disks, playing Trade Wars on the local BBS, and installing your first Soundblaster.
I'd tend to agree with you, I don't think its the same. I'm in university for SEng right now and my father has been in IT since before I was born (in 93). I've been surrounded by technology my whole life, but instead of Amigas and Apple IIs it was Windows 95 on some nameless, beige machine.
I have fond memories of learning how to interact with the family PC but nothing close to what I read about the original days when home computing and hacker culture was growing. It makes me envious to a degree, like I love programming and all that comes with it but when I read pieces like this that evoke so much fond emotion attached to the skill...I don't know...its a little foreign. To me programming and computing in general is this thing that I am good at, that brings me happiness because I like to solve problems but to people like the author it seems like something more. A dear loved one that will always warm their heart.
I'm not sure it will ever be the same as it was back then, to be a pioneer...
I have had a relationship with computing like many of the commenters here. I remember our kindergarten teacher letting us take turns grounding ourselves under the keyboard of an Apple IIe. I can't explain it but I could tell from that moment that I had a thing for computing technology.
I remember playing games at a friend's house on an IBM PC. Her dad worked there and we would just mess around and had no idea what we were doing in the game. I just loved interacting with the thing.
I remember long nights playing games on my cousin's C64. Playing Archon and some racing game. Doing basic programming.
I begged my parents for a computer and we eventually got one in 1993. It cost around $2,000 back then and was 33 MHz, had 8 MB RAM, and had a 207 MB hard drive. No sound card, CD ROM, or printer at the time. Game over from that point on. I knew I had to do something in computing technology for a living.
Things seem so figured out these days. I wonder if kids get that same feeling of novelty we got back then?