How did you start learning how to work on computers?

[Demon-Xanth]

My way:
1. Buy a cheap computer
2. Crash the OS
3. Fix the OS
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until I figured out what was causing step 2
5. Upgrade repeatedly
6. When system is maxed. Build one.

...from there it's just bits and pieces w/ lots of reading thrown in.

 

[Killbat]

Learned GWBASIC on a Tandy 1000SX desktop.

 

[IamDavid]

I traded a 83 Buick Regal for a Compaq Desk Pro P133 and have been hooked ever since..

 

[Windogg]

IAmDavid, heh heh, both are worth $.50 unless you strip it down and sell the parts.

Windogg

 

[Anybody]

Got hooked on computer games at a young age. Went down hill from there.

 

[ltk007]

I went to AT for about a month, bought a heap of parts and figured it out from there. Well, I did have a few years experience of destroying my parents computer before that.

 

[pillage2001]

Let's see..started with DIgdug on a 8088??

 

[Electric Amish]

Learned Basic programming in Jr. High on a Apple ][.

More Programming (Pascal) in High School on MAC boxes.

Parents finally broke down and bought an 8088 in the mid '80s

I bought an old 386 when one of my jobs was getting rid of old PC's for $70. It didn't work for crap, so I paid $500 for someone to put in a 486dx4-100 motherboard/processor/16mb ram.

Messed with that system for awhile adding ram, hard drive, video cards, sound cards. Installing and killing win95a constantly.

Upgraded that system myself to a Pentium 200mmx. Overclocked that to 233 on the crappy motherboard. Again played with Win95b, video cards, sound cards, a little linux.

Broke down and built me a brand new Celeron 300a system and overclocked that to 464. Modded the case. Messed with Win98se

Just built a new Athlon classic (few months ago) 700 @ 900 with GFD. Moded the case.

amish

 

[Demosthenes]

When my family moved from Houston to Dallas when I was in the 3rd grade one of the first things my dad did was buy a brand spankin' new POWERHOUSE 386. He paid something ridiculous for it.. I think 5 grand counting monitor and printer and everything. Youch. As any 3rd grader with a new computer, I had to play some games on it.. but did I call some tech support line or whine and complain to friends when they wouldn't work? Hell no. I worked and worked and figured it all out for myself.... a trait that seems to not be very common with new computer users nowadays.

I guess starting out with DOS turned just about anyone into a computer nerd with enough time.

 

[roc919]

I used to have my friend set my computer up everytime I wanted an upgrade. Then one day, he brought over my new computer (in parts) to install but he had to leave to go back to his college. So I ended up starting from scratch on my own--no regrets cuz now I'm a tech geek

 

[I'm Typing]

Worked as a video game/pinball Tech for 10 years, then "graduated" to computers...how hard could computers be after fixing coin-op video games? hahahaha!

 

[BoberFett]

Cool job I'm Typing. How was the pay? Not too great I imagine. Still, fixing pinball machines would be some fun work.

 

[I'm Typing]

Bober: When I was doing it full-time, working for someone else (I was a Regional Manager when I quit), made about 50K (had a company car, wore a suit, had an expense acct, etc.). Fixing machines was only one part of the job--mostly supervision, hiring firing trianing etc. Most techs make about 30-50K.

Now I charge 50-75/hour to work on machines in people's homes. About the same as what I charge for computer work.

 

[thebestMAX]

1. Air Force
2. Univac (Sperry-Rand)
3. Burroughs Corp.
4. Harris Data Communications
5. My own
Atari
Epson 286
Home builds:
386 -dx25
386 dx 40 with math co processor
486 dx-100
586 dx-133
PII-400
Tbird 1 Gig

Helped various friends on their systems also.

 

Worked with those Apple's in elementary school, oooooh, Turtle graphics!! At home, got DOS to do what I wanted at a young age. The rest is history...

 

[Bignate603]

Starting messing around when i was maybe 5 or six. Next ten years was spent in want od a decent system. I went from an 8088 with dual floppies to a 286 to a 386. The #86 was the first system i really played with. When something was broke, i fixed it. I was maybe in 4th grade when i was playing with this. Around 6th or 7th grade we upgraded to a 486 dx4. It still sucked at the time but it got things done. That was my first toying with upgrades. After that computer had run it's course, we went and bought a pentium 200 when i was in maybe 9th grade. Solid preformer at the time. Now i'm in 11th grade. I spent my summer's worth of pay from lifeguarding on what i consider my first real "power" system. It can run with the best of them.

 

[silverspear]

put things together - break em and find a solution - basically thats how i guess.

 

[XeonTux]

Killbat:
Learned GWBASIC on a Tandy 1000SX desktop.

Same here!

Can you believe I made a fully functional paint program in gwbasic? It took advantage of 320x200x16 color tandy gfx (screen 5). Had all the standard tools, cut/copy/paste, resize, undo, hypertext-style help system...even 3d-style buttons and menus like are popular today (no pc apps had then, I got idea from amiga screenshots) Thing was so huge, I had to remove comments to keep on writing. Too bad porting to basic compilers would have been to hard, or it might have been more usable.

To this day I am glad I convinced my p's that their (original) Mac was a POS and to buy one of these for me. The deal was I had to pass 6th grade, LOL. Not that I wasn't smart, I was just getting in trouble alot back then.

 

[Tominator]

I bought a Timex computer for $25 bucks. It was worth every cent!

Then I paid $2800 for a Cybermax with a P166+ Cyrix processor. STB Lightspeed 128 video. A giant 2.5 WD Cavier drive. A Ensoniq Vivo Sound card. 32mb EDO FAST memory. 8X Toshiba CDrom. 17 inch monitor. 33.6 modem.

In three years of warranty I went through 3 monitors. 2 video cards. 2 CDroms. And, get this, over 1500 hours of technical help!! I got my moneys worth! LOL!

I ended up fixing more than they did by trial and error and reading about computers on Tom's Hardware....finally migrateing to AnandTech via Billy's Motherboard World after convincing mysel to build my next...and reading about the legendary California Graphics Photon 100 HC...which Anand gave an A+....[Anand, everybody makes mistakes!]....

And I've been a computer building fool ever since....did I mention I was legendary? Btw, don't ask me where I'm legendary....

 

[XeonTux]

In three years of warranty I went through 3 monitors. 2 video cards. 2 CDroms. And, get this, over 1500 hours of technical help!! I got my moneys worth! LOL!

Those are some absolutely insane numbers! Are you sure it wasn't a user problem? Either that or it was a lemon company!

 

[Tominator]

I could write a book! Sure, some of it was me, but when I got it DOOM would crash it! It ended up being the STB drivers were total crap. I ended up researching the vido card and found it was the Tseng Labs ET6000 chipset and by using the generic drivers the problems [some of them anyway!] were cured. Their techs were thrilled that someone found a solution as one of them finally admitted they had LOTS of problems with that card. First monitor was a Princeton Graphics that lasted 30 days. Next was a Mitsubishi that had a slight flicker and at the end of the warranty I argued my way into a Mag DJ700 that still works flawlessly on another comp.....Man! I've got lots of stories...

 

[Zedfu]

i've crashed and fiddled with my old 486dx3-75 as much as humanly possible ...and from there i've learned how it worked. trial and error's my method of learning, and sometimes i learn the hard way