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where'd u all learn your computer skills? - Page 2

post #21 of 51
10/11/05 at 8:38pm
i got mine from god...

explanation
it seems that ive been using computers since i was little i mean real little like 2-3. and ive always seemd to know what everything does.

my first computer was a ibm pcjr
my 2nd was a compaq prasario (floor model) (free software installed)
my 3rd was a custom built (by me and dad) AMD 3dnow proc computer
my 4th was a dell 8100 1.4GHz p4 w/o HT
my 5th was a costom built computer with a athlon 64 3200+ (STILL OWN)
my 6th was a alienware 766 (STILL OWN)

EDIT :: also my 1st beta test was "DREAMSCAPE" in 1995-1996. my mom got me an acct to do it. LOL so that made me 7-8 yrs old at the time.
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post #22 of 51
10/11/05 at 8:57pm
Impressive, nav. Start 'em while they're young and they will learn to rule the world.



Don't get any ideas though!
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post #23 of 51
10/11/05 at 9:09pm
I took a typing class in senior year thinking it would be easy and it wasn't, big mistake but I'm glad I took it. Then I got most of my computer stuff from work, with 12 hours with nothing to do but screw off I just messed around and learned but learned from other people too
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post #24 of 51
10/11/05 at 9:33pm
basicly i learned by messing around. I'd read something about making my computer faster, or would be messing with settings and break something important. then I learn a ton digging through documentation until I figure out how to fix it.
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post #25 of 51
10/12/05 at 5:18pm
A local college donated a then start of the art Apple LC to my elementary school's library around '92/93. Prior to then we had been using Apple IIs. Have been into it ever since.
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post #26 of 51
10/13/05 at 7:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nyako
It's my first time using Macs but they're pretty simple.
I agree, and in fact that's the primary reason that company still sells computers. If they were complicated to use, being as unaccepted by the layman user as they already are, they'd be buried by Windows in no time.

The whole point is to be simple to use.

On the other hand, they don't really do anything that a PC cannot. It's personal preference and brand loyalty more than anything that makes this big rift between Mac and PC users, and they think they're somehow divine.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

M.
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post #27 of 51
10/18/05 at 9:46pm
I got a Commodore VIC-20 for Christmas of 1982 (I was 6 yrs. old), and have basically been using them ever since. I started playing around with the BASIC that the VIC-20 shipped with, and eventually moved to the Apple II, and later the DOS/Mac/Windows platforms. The vast majority of what I know about PCs has been entirely self-taught, with forums like this helping to answer some questions I did not have an answer to already. What passed for computer classes when I was in school were a joke ("I want you to write a program in BASIC that will randomly generate a number between 1 and 10").

I've also always been interested in taking apart the computers I have owned to see how they work and what's actually inside the case. That also started with the VIC-20, which I still own and pull out from time to time. I used to love playing Q*Bert and Frogger on that machine...
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post #28 of 51
10/21/05 at 1:45pm
The VIC-20 came out way before 82 didn't it?? I could've swore I was younger than 15 when I got mine.. hmmmm

ok, here's the stats, I guess I must've got mine right as it came out and just don't remember way back then..

NAME VIC 20
MANUFACTURER Commodore
TYPE Home Computer
ORIGIN U.S.A.
YEAR May 1981
END OF PRODUCTION January 1985
BUILT IN LANGUAGE CBM Basic V2
KEYBOARD Full-stroke keyboard, 4 function keys, 66 keys
CPU Commodore Semiconductor Group 6502A
SPEED 1.0227 Mhz
COPROCESSOR VIC-I (6560) for sound and graphics.
RAM 5 KB (3583 bytes free), expandable up to 32 KB
VRAM (shared regular RAM)
ROM 16 KB
TEXT MODES 23 rows x 22 columns
GRAPHIC MODES 184 x 176
COLORS 8 character colors, 16 background/border colors
SOUND 3 voices / 3 octaves
SIZE / WEIGHT 40.3 x 20.4 x 7.2 cm / 1,8 Kg
I/O PORTS 1 joystick port, 1 user port, 1 serial port, 1 cartrige port, RGB output, tape interface
POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit, 18 Watts
PRICE $299.95 (1981, U.S.A.)
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post #29 of 51
11/5/05 at 2:15pm
A lot of trial and error... Mainly becuase I'd mess it up and try to fix it before my dad would get home and beat me when I was younger... .
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post #30 of 51
11/5/05 at 2:52pm
I've been coding since I was 6 years old and learned HTML and started creating my own websites. I'd always just screw around with computers and find out new stuff but I've only recently been getting into building my own computer and getting faster speeds. I'm only 13 right now though and have my own website and soon to be my own design company. I learned everything self-taught.

When you're born to use computers then there's nothing else to do except use computers.
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post #31 of 51
11/5/05 at 3:05pm
Mainly my real knowledge came when I went to work for a local computer store and since then everything I read on the 'net. I also went to school for a year as part of my Industrial Insurance claim. Didn't really learn anyrhing new, but 4 of my classes were on MS Server 2003 so that always looks good on the resume. Still reading about new things to this day and moddin the hell outta my box and anyone elses that I can get my hands on. My parent's have got one hell of a nice water cooling setup now. Now at the ripe age of 32 everyone I know thinks I am an IT GOD (now I just need to convince and employer of that and all is well).
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post #32 of 51
11/5/05 at 3:28pm
Ahhh.....memories.....

My first computer was a TI 99/4A, with 16 colors and a 16 bit processor. I was like 5-6 I think. I learned some very basic programming and got to know about hardware.

Then jumped to my trusty C64 from which I learned a lot how computers work. Then I started reading about hardware stuff, took some courses from which I got more knowledge.

Oh yeah, like most of us here I learned with some trial and error and ummm...taking a peek inside stuff....

And here I am working at a local computer manufacturer getting to play with stuff and gadgets.

(Heard it once: if it ain't broke, bring the tools and start modding)
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post #33 of 51
11/5/05 at 3:43pm
lessee....

for Christmas when I was 4 years old I received my own computer, a Commodore 64. I could read at that age, rather well. I started writing simple programs on it in BASIC a few days after that (once we had a disk drive set up for it, something was wrong with the disk drive IIRC and so had to take it to a repair shop), and getting more complex from there as i got my hands on every commodore 64 programming book I could find. we got a 386 a few years later in my house so i had that to play with as well. i pretty much figured out everything by trial and error
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post #34 of 51
11/6/05 at 3:58am
Ti-99/4A!! Did you get that external expansion adapter that had the THICK cable? I loved that thing! Had a RAM card. I learned COBOL on the TI.


Still got my C64 at my moms place, in the back of the closet of my old room. Got to make sure she didn't throw it out with my baseball cards.
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post #35 of 51
11/6/05 at 4:09am
I first got interested in computers when I was a deputy sheriff in the early 90's. I was lazy and did my reports on a word processor. I just had a talent for fixing the computers when there were problems and hence I became everyones nerd. Once my wife was almost done with vet school we decided it was time for me to go back to school. I worked in a computer lab at a community college for three years while I got my bachelors degree. I have business degree with a management information systems minor. I also took tons of computer science classes. My first job out of school was a senior programmer analyst for a fortune 500 company. My second job (that I quit March 2005) was a software engineer. If you frequent the AW boards you will see I can build a pretty decent rig from scratch (I have built 3 or 4 from the ground up so far plus completely remodeled many many more).
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post #36 of 51
11/6/05 at 4:30am
1987, parents bought me an awesome IBM pc/xt clone. 6mhz/no hard drive/cga monitor and I even had Compuserve! (till I ran up a $400 bill at 9 cents a minute) How many of you can say you we're on the internet back then?
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post #37 of 51
11/6/05 at 4:47am
Started development with AppleSoft BASIC at 7.
6502 assembly/machine language by 9.
x86 C by 11, C++ by 12.

Then a mix of Pascal, BASIC and other languages for the next couple years.

Then back to C/C++ for the most part, until I started at Microsoft, then C# and VB.

So I started learning about computers at a young age as well.
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post #38 of 51
11/6/05 at 6:07am
I see the evil spawn of Bill Gates is here LOL. Just joking. I am one of teh few how actually appreciate Microsoft. They rule. From their OS's to DBs (SQL server) to development IDEs (VB NET) and their productivity suites Microsoft has given us a coherent set of applications and utilities and a nice OS to go with them. Macheads and Linux addicts are just jealous.
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post #39 of 51
11/6/05 at 7:06am
From trial and error, and messing around with different things. If you go slowly, you can't really break anything or not be able to put anything back together. that goes for the non physical stuff too. The net and forums like these are particularly helpfull.
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post #40 of 51
11/6/05 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChadLittle
Ti-99/4A!! Did you get that external expansion adapter that had the THICK cable? I loved that thing! Had a RAM card. I learned COBOL on the TI.


Still got my C64 at my moms place, in the back of the closet of my old room. Got to make sure she didn't throw it out with my baseball cards.
No, dont remember about it, had the Speech Unit though, with it characters on games and learning programs could now speak or read the text written on the screen, also some utilities like word processing could also read back what you typed.

There was a fun little program of about three lines you could type to have the computer read back what you typed. If you changed some values the voice would be different.
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