Older “Computers”
Years ago back in the mid 2000’s, I was so entranced by older computer veterans who have been working on PCs from the earliest days 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.
When I was that young, I did not know how to program and had very little hardware skills. I just knew how to setup stuff and follow tutorials.
I bought L2 cache SRAM modules for my Intel 486 computer. I bought an ATI Rage PCI video card to have composite video out for my Intel Celeron 300A integrated PC with no AGP slot. I bought a nerfed PDA: Casio BE-300 and browsed www.be300.org to make it more usable.
I felt that was enough to work. But I also learned that by learning all these setups and tutorials will end up somewhere … .
I thought it would take years and years, like 10-15 years to learn enough to make programs and modifications to build software that I liked.
What kept me going to become a programmer was it’s power. I thought programming was some supernatural power that I wanted to possess.
I realized when doing programming in college it was just 1s and 0s. It was just “IF” statements at the end. You are going bit-by-bit trying to solve problems by putting these real world problems in the logic system of “IF” statements. There is really not much to it I think so far from what I am doing.
When I talk or chat to computer veterans, they are very down to earth and logical. That is what I wanted to become.
By looking at life logical there is calmness and realistic expectations which is healthy and nice.
By escaping to the old forums where these computer veterans hang out I felt excited, calm and at home.
A lot of cool work was being done to make old devices work better.
Tweaking older systems was like something out of sci-fi … but it is just 1s and 0s?