Today it is hard to imagine a world without computers, they practically control and keep the world moving at a break neck pace. We use them for everything nowadays, from e-mailing to researching and surfing the internet, to stock trading and online banking. Most people (like me) cannot go through a day without using at least four computer controlled products, such as cellphones, alarm clocks, cars, and of course PC’s (or MACs). So today I was thinking back to the not so technologically advanced year of 1996 when with my great suggestion and coxing, my family got our first PC. I remember that a Best Buy had just opened up in our area and that they were having a grand opening sale, and I spotted a computer that was supposedly a “great deal” for it’s time. It was a Packard Bell 486 Pentium, and soon we would come to find out, we got ripped off.

So we bought the computer at a cost of about fourteen hundred dollars which included a fifteen inch monitor, speakers, one of those old ribbon printers and a heap of pretty much useless software. The OS of course was Windows 3.1 and thus I was introduced to my love hate relationship with Windows and Microsoft. Now if you remember to the days of Windows 3.1 then you also will remember the big rule DOS played in the operation of almost every program on the computer. I quickly became fluent in every DOS command in which I used to run and install games and learn the ropes of the computer’s inner functions.

When I stated above that we got ripped off I was being completely serious. For starters it was powered by a Pentium 486 processor, and when I say 486 I am not talking about Megahertz. It had a 210 megabyte hard drive, 32 megabytes of RAM, and if I recall correctly 4 megabytes of Video RAM. It had a floppy disk drive and a 4x CD-ROM drive to boot, but I was ecstatic to have a new computer nonetheless, even if it was a overpriced and underpowered piece of shit. I began playing games like Monkey Island, The Dig, and Warcraft and from that point on I became a computer nerd.

So anyway, even though my first computer may not have been the best at the time it set me on a path that I am still on today. A path that has lead me to self teach myself everything about computers, and technology. I am self taught in web programming, graphic design, and computer assembly and repair. Hah, that computer is the reason I am sitting here typing this post today, thus I look back and am grateful that on that fateful day sixteen years ago a computer changed my life.

Do you remember your first computer? Your first experiences with Windows? Your first time playing Sim City or Warcraft? If so I would love to hear about it, and if I think it is good enough I will enough post it for all to read. So please send in your stories to me here, I look forward to reading them!