Not everyone got interested in pcs cause of the cool factor.

r4sh1d

Member
Feb 21, 2012
137
31
101
Tldr: Back in the stone age, I was dumb and hated pcs, now I don't.

I was 14 I think. I was the expert in vcr cleaning and maintaining, and the sega, ps1 at the time, when my brother who works in the IT brought home a pc. He was showing me how cool it was and all, I started using it, but it'd lock up or disconnect from the internet, and I'd hate it since it was too complicated for me. My brother would try to explain how to fix it. But I was too dumb to care, and would just ask him to fix the stupid thing. Why isn't this thing as simple as the ps1? I would ask.

When I was 20 I moved to the states for school, needed a pc for homeworks and stuff, bought a used windows ME pc from a friend who had tons of hacking software installed. He asked me if I could reinstall windows? I knew nothing about pcs, so he printed the instructions for me, I didn't bother to reinstall windows. He left the country. After a few days, the pc decided not to open internet explorer, which was the only thing I knew how to operate. I took the pc to a repair shop, they charged me $80, a few weeks later, it did the same thing. I took it back to the shop, paid another $80. It did it again after a few weeks, but I was broke, and didn't have any knowledge of money management.

All of my friends at the time knew nothing about pcs. I needed the thing fixed, so I'd go to the school's library and type in/ search for the error code, print a solution and wait till I get home to try it. It didn't fix it, so I'd need to wait till the following day to visit the library to search some more. But this time I actually got smarter and printed 5 or 6 different solutions I found online.

One of the solutions fixed the issue, and I had internet explorer up and running, I had a great feeling of accomplishment. So, I started visiting tech forums and reading about people's issues they were facing with their pcs, and try to remember the correct answers so in case it happens to me, and I had no internet access at home, I wouldn't need to wait till the following day.

It started to become an obsession, after a while I started fixing my friends laptops & pcs, it was great, having the ability to get their computers fixed, I didn't want any of them to have a broken computer, seeing how I hated the feeling of a broken pc, and learned a valuable lesson.

I found the pc shop receipt under my mattress a couple of years later, they charged me $80 for "resetting internet explorer settings".
 
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Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
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I fell in my accident. Didn't know much about them beyond basic use but I needed a job to pay for food and college. I was angling for retail position selling TVs or audio equipment but they had an opening in computer sales so thats where I got put. Moved into the new repair department when it opened because it paid more and I had to deal with people less. I kept a part time job working with computers after graduating which was fortunate because the field where I got my degree, Architecture, got the shit kicked out of it and had the highest unemployment rate of any major degree from 2005-2014 (more than drama, art etc). So I left that behind and started in IT full time and now I get to play with multi-PB scale storage solutions, large compute clusters and get to mold projects for large customers. Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I actually had any formal training in my field, esp early on, but its worked out alright
 
Nov 8, 2012
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I got interested because I was a fat nerd with a lot of free time to look on forums. That and water-cooled PCs looked awesome.

Then I went to college and started chasing girls...amazing what can make you drop world of warcraft cold turkey even when you're the most geared hunter on the server.
Then I got a job and free time ceased to exist....
Then I had a kid and my free time actually went into negatives as much as that doesn't seem possible...
 

tcG

Golden Member
Jul 31, 2006
1,202
18
81
Motherboards used to look like this:
687.jpg


Now they look like this:
Asus-ROG-Maximus-IX-Formula-Review.jpg



You used to feel like you were beating the system by going into the BIOS and tweaking settings to get more speed for less money. Now everything is automatic, hand holding, etc.
 
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nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
61,775
17,494
136
Motherboards used to look like this:
687.jpg


Now they look like this:
Asus-ROG-Maximus-IX-Formula-Review.jpg



You used to feel like you were beating the system by going into the BIOS and tweaking settings to get more speed for less money. Now everything is automatic, hand holding, etc.
Heck, even that first motherboard is "fancy" compared to back in the day.
 
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BudAshes

Lifer
Jul 20, 2003
13,983
3,330
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The first computer I built had this amazing Sony 21" monitor. I got it used and the shipping was double the cost of the monitor. It was a CRT monitor and weighed approximately the same amount as my Subaru. I remember putting it on my desk and having a Jaws moment. "We're gonna need a bigger desk"
 
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Bartman39

Elite Member | For Sale/Trade
Jul 4, 2000
8,867
51
91
Uhm well back in 1994 I had a pretty bad bike wreck on my 1979 KZ1000 screwed up my right foot pretty bad with a few other things... Well got a settlement from the other guys insurance and bought a $4000 pentium 90 PC had 16megs of ram a 730meg HD, 4X CDrom, 2meg video card and a SB16 sound card oh and a sweet 17" monitor with it... Sure was a screaming antique... :cool:

After calling and bugging all of my friends with PC`s about how to use the darn thing for 2 weeks and more or less pissing them all off I just dug into it and figured it out... They all had 386`s & 486`s so I became top dog in my neck of the woods... Trust me it took a lot for me to figure it out but I have never looked back I just recently upgraded from a 2600K to a 7700K (could not refuse because of the price)...
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
50,742
6,769
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Everyone was playing Counter-strike and my crappy HP tower couldn't run it. My buddy said I had to get a "video card". The heck was a video card? It was all downhill from there :D
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
50,742
6,769
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SATA? PCI-E? ATX?? Onboard connectors CPU CLAMPS?! Where are the DIP switches? Where are the modular AT plugs!? Madness!

Modern computers are so weird. Clip in the NVMe chip, the RAM, the CPU...plug in the Win10 USB...it takes all of 30 minutes to have a working computer these days, lol (minus an overnight memtest & all that jazz).
 

renz20003

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2011
2,714
634
136
Motherboards used to look like this:
687.jpg


Now they look like this:
Asus-ROG-Maximus-IX-Formula-Review.jpg



You used to feel like you were beating the system by going into the BIOS and tweaking settings to get more speed for less money. Now everything is automatic, hand holding, etc.

bi-025c_ht12_286_16mhz_simm_motherboard.jpg


This was back in my day... back when the cache was an add on
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,170
16,313
146
Modern computers are so weird. Clip in the NVMe chip, the RAM, the CPU...plug in the Win10 USB...it takes all of 30 minutes to have a working computer these days, lol (minus an overnight memtest & all that jazz).
And as a bonus, once set up, it's not even yours anymore!
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Getting the jumpers correct on the motherboard, making sure you have your hard drive connected in the correct order on the IDE ribbon, routing the mess of cables from the PSU since nothing was modular back then, having to buy a new motherboard, ram, cpu, and video card every year just to play the game you want to play, waiting for Nvidia, ATI, 3DFX, etc to release new drivers just so you can run your damn game, I could keep going.

Nowadays you just have to pay 3x MSRP for your video card.
 

SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
18,471
2,411
136
Ouch,
I love that picture. Toughest woman in IT. She's wearing safety glasses to attenuate her super vision, so it doesn't melt the solder joints :^D

CVsZnBz.jpg

She's holding the soldering iron where it's hot. :eek:

Here's a pic of a IBM compatible PC motherboard I had to deal with in the early '80s. ;)
Not exactly this specific mobo, since there were many companies manufacturing their versions at that time, but somewhat similar.

pc.jpg
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,170
16,313
146
Here's a pic of a IBM compatible PC motherboard I had to deal with in the early '80s. ;)
Not exactly this specific mobo, since there were many companies manufacturing their versions at that time, but somewhat similar.

pc.jpg
This was one of my firsts, maybe not the same board, but a 486 @25mhz with a RAM expansion board (5MB of RAM, whut whut!).
P1010002%20%282%29.JPG
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,408
9,931
126
I didn't get into fooling with hardware until the p4 northwood era. That was also when I got /into/ computers. Before that, I used them as an occasional tool when necessary.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
72,337
32,882
136
I remember when the ability to organize recipes was a selling point for computers. I never could figure out how organizing recipes could be such a chore but having never tried it myself, I shouldn't speculate.

Why one would want to organize recipes is still a mystery.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
2,450
126
I always had a knack for fixing PC's. I got my first one (a Commodore 64) at a yard sale for $10 when I was 13, and fixed it by replacing the fuse on it.

The school librarian let me cut through his hallway in high school (a big no no at the time) because I helped him keep his PC's running. You know you're getting pretty damn good at it when you can fix a PC or Mac problem in the three minute break between classes :) I also used to beta test video games, and that needed a pretty good gaming rig. Keeping it upgraded on a budget was a necessity!

By the time I was finishing college, I was working in their IT department and learning more practical skills than that I was learning in my programming classes. I used what I learned to get a job a (the) Big Evil Blue computer corporation. They wanted me to be a Lotus Notes developer, but I was running one of their server rooms by the end of the first year I worked there.
 
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Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,557
3,728
126
Motherboards used to look like this:
687.jpg

lol - I recognized that immediately. I know others got into building PCs sooner but that was the mobo for my first build. I actually just fully retired it last year from running my home storage array. Its now in an anti-static sleeve sitting on a shelf but I feel like 11 years is a pretty good run