Computer stuff

I got involved with computers in school, back when computer time was sitting in front of a TTY station, typing out the input to the program (a couple of programs on the time share mainframe that my junior high school had connected to at the main office at the board of education) usually star trek. It was a simple game, but it was working with a computer! there was also Hangman, and a couple of other text based adventure games as well.  You always had to keep the computer fed with paper (tractor fed green/white stuff that always seemed to go way too slow to print, but too fast getting used up.) because that's what you got the output from. No monitor. Then they got a computer terminal with a video screen that you could see the amber on black. that was a step up for sure...

I didn't see much by way of computers in high school, although another student was 3/4 finished with building an Altair, a prehistoric monster of a homebrew, with 256 bytes of memory to program. Mostly switches and lights, although I believe they later made a video adapter for them.

Then I joined the navy. 1982 I got my first thing that was ever called a computer, a TRS-80 Pocket computer,  model 1.  It had a few games, programmed in pocket BASIC, and had a couple of programs that were useful. More useful than that was the fact it could be programmed to do functions like the HP-67 calculator that I had to use, but hated, in the Navy. Sonar operators use many formulas and such to tell things like what machine noise is what, how fast a sub is going, etc... It was handy, better than a calculator, stored programs, and had a printer and tape recorder to save programs.

Then I got my first desktop type. An Atari 800, with a bunch of cartridges. BASIC programming, centipede, asteroids, and about 8 others. Programming was easier on a fuller size keyboard, but the keys were not very good. No speed typing here... 16K if RAM, and some more ROM, But it didn't go very far. I gave it to my youngest brother, Tony, and he flew with it.

Then I was a lot more into music, for many years... A decade passed. I used some Macs here and there, a PC or two for work, but not much else. Then I got a 486/33 with 40 megs of RAM and an 80 meg Conner Peripherals hard drive. Dos 6.22 and Win 3.1, and got to know that. I got on the internet with it.. The internet, in 1995, was not exactly fast. Not like it is now, and certainly not with a 14.4 modem. I learned things. I got a faster 486 with a 234 meg hard drive. that filled up. I went to school for computers, and got hired to do tech support.... for Internet Explorer 4, on windows 95.

I needed more computer, so I traded a friend my SVT 400 bass rig for a pentium 2 tower. It was a good trade. I had much mre computer than I had previously, and learned win95, then 98 on it. I was on the tech path.

I needed computers to network, to study for my MCSE certification. I got another PC at a good price, and that got me through  for a while... then another one...they started to take over....

I got out of school, then started doing QA testing on new motherboards and software at intel, and learned more. I worked upgrading unix terminals to NT workstations, while building a network for a company on the side. (that company now has reps and offices in 4 states, and I support them.

I keep current as far as the new technology in hardware and operating systems, and have the skills necessary to build a multiple domain setup, or a multi-track setup as well. I have over 6 years experience in windows, with a wide variety of hardware, and I stand behind what I work on.