First in line came the PC! I stumbled onto an old 8088 IBM machine that was setting on a back desk in a construction office. Grabbed me a book from the library and learned how to run DOS on the dusty old beige box that nobody else knew what to do with! Now for something that is in fact a glorified adding machine that just blew me away. I spent many a long night in that back corner exploring the HD and even found a proggie on it that was called “Learning DOS” I likened those nights back to a certain lady in high school and the back of a Buick! Couldn’t seen to get enough. I soon became bored with making DOS whistle and rather quickly found that you could also hook it up to something called modem and visit bulletin boards, Yes, at a blazing 2,400 speed I found naughty stuff, beautiful things and even people on the other end of an electric line that if you weren’t too much of a wee-hole might even talk to you! But there were limitation. The people that were running them weren’t always interested in the same things that I was nor did they or I have the space to store large amounts of data and what the “F” is the idea of turning their own computer off or using it for your own purposes . Don’t you hear me tap, tap, tapping at your electronic door?

Now a couple of weeks go by and as a like minded buddy and I watched in amazement the heartbreak of watching the HD fail when we booted it up while holding said drive in the palm of my hand. OK what to do? I ran like a tail wagging the dog to the local store and purchased a 286. Wow! Not only did this new box do all of the other stuff but it also had pretty pictures in the way of Windows 3.0. Could love get any better that this? This just started me on the road to bigger and better. Now you can draw up your own set of tools for beginning to understand what make me tick! {in this moment, at this hour on this damn day.} All is subject to change at the strike of nicotine molecule!

My next step in the computer arms race was a 386, then on up rapidly through a 486 and on to a Pentium chip! Yes Virginia, I still have that same said Pentium chip! I was going to grind the pins off the back of it and wear it mounted it on a gold chain around my neck as a medallion. Luckily I was able to step away from the keyboard for a while as that would have been way too geeky for even me. These little boxes help me step into the internet! Of course, at the time that pretty much spelled AOL. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was an AOLer! I’ve already admitted to running Win 3.0. The problem that I had with that it was like eating at a cafeteria where there wasn’t anything on the menu except “canned meat”. I rolled gladly along for many years with numerous upgraded to Windows! At the time 95 was to my way of thinking the cats’ meow. Next up was 98 and then XP. That’s when we all started to pick up on security and the web. I also ventured out into the Mac world with an old Macintosh that I bought for $300! I was never very impressed with it due to serious limitations in both storage and speed! I did turn my Dad onto a bigger Mac in later years due to a long story of his missing digits and the need for a single button mouse! Alas, I never owned another Mac myself having already aligned myself in the PC crowd! {Not so much a windows person but just a DOS operating system type of guy.}

The command line interface has never scared me. My last box came with Vista. To say that I am unimpressed with windows is an understatement.. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not totally dogging the Everett bunch. They do a lot of stuff very well. I have always been impressed by their hardware discovery routines. But I’ve always been somewhat unhappy with their idea of a multi person OS. It always felt kind of awkward to me. I have never thought much of their security. Too many unnecessary permissions granted in the philosophy to allow everyone free access! Not that I have that many national security type files on my box but there are files that I would prefer not to be accessed, seen or messed with! I now have a disk for the newest and greatest?? Windows 7. Haven’t even bothered to put it on my hard drive and most of my work is now done in Debian Linux.. That, my dear is another story!