How long have you been into technology?

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

I’ve had a natural attraction to technology for as long as I can remember. As a young kid, I was fascinated with VCRs and stereo equipment but after receiving a NES for my 5th birthday, I was drawn into a world where the hardware was just as exciting as the games.

After petitioning my parents for a computer for years (I would literally comb through sales ads in the Sunday newspaper each week lusting over PCs), the trajectory of my life was changed forever when I received my first computer as a Christmas gift in high school. I’ve been knee-deep in technology ever since.

With this week’s open forum, we’d like to hear about your experiences with technology. How long have you been interested in tech? Was there a certain product or gadget that reeled you in or is it ingrained in your DNA?

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Since 1971...my teacher brought a crystal radio to school, and it puzzled me as to how a radio could work, without batteries. Junior high taught myself a lot of ohm's law, graduated electronic school in 1980, spent a year as a bench tech at Texas Instruments, been in electronics, ham radio for over 40 years.
 
I think my first real interest came with calculators and in the early 70's, but my real fascination with technology began with the tabletop Missile Command and Pac Man games and the old solid state Bally and Williams pinball machines at the local arcade - not so much playing them but watching them being maintained and serviced. A fascination that lingered well after the technology aged and led to me acquiring both some years later for my own home - and judging by the awe and delight they produced in visitors who instantly rushed to play them, that fascination was widespread.

Computer-wise I'd say it would be signing up for the first computer science class at my high school and finding out that to continue past the introduction we each had to build out own 8-bit computer to advance through the class. The pride in competing to produce the neatest wire-wrapping and soldering, through building a working system, and finally - producing code that actually ran as it should - cemented my abiding interest in computers.
 
Since 1971...my teacher brought a crystal radio to school, and it puzzled me as to how a radio could work, without batteries. Junior high taught myself a lot of ohm's law, graduated electronic school in 1980, spent a year as a bench tech at Texas Instruments, been in electronics, ham radio for over 40 years.
P51-D sn007? surely that's no coincidence!!!
 
I did the same when I was younger, I took everything apart to see how it worked and I used the parts to make other gadgets. My Uncle and Grandfather were HAM radio operators in their time and my Granddad worked for SWBell back in the 50's and 60's. They used to take me to the HAM conventions and I would buy and assemble those kits they sold to make radios and IR transmitters on PCB. I guess you could say it just runs in the family.

Here I am some 35 years later working as a Systems Administrator.
 
In 1969 when color tv was in its infancy and I was 10 years old, my father bought us and my grandfather each an airline montgomery ward color tv. These must have been really built on bad thresholds, because they'd break at least every 3 months. We had what they called insurance on ours, so I watched the guy fix them and would then take the tubes to walgreen and test them, then go to a wholesaler called kelsea electronics and buy them for half price. The high voltage tubes were $15, so radio shack had lifetime guarantee tubes, altho you often had to go 2 or 3 times (and bring my father) to get new ones. The university of chicago lab school had a great library with a fabulous book on how to do it. Had to clean the mechanical tuners with silicone (valley) tuner cleaner or the picture was snow. One black and white zenith set needed less repairs, but had a loud motorized tuner with a remote (unusual in those days) that clicked loudly when a hammer struck a metal cylinder when pressing a button. There was convergence, and older black and white sets had 50 tubes in I-f circuits that became detuned involving replacing 20 tubes or getting the manuals and setting choke pots with an oscilloscope, later having one but never did that. Even before that at age 5 grampa worked for att so we all had the ringback number to make the phone ring. It was a way of calling the person on your party line. Dad worked for gm delco radio so I repaired tube radios (even in cars.) In 1975 senior year age 16 at downers grove high school south I learned basic and fortran on an hp2000 mini computer 300 baud paper terminal dialed up by modem using cards not keypunched but filled in by pencil. In 1976 at university of ill. chicago I started in premedicine but used their hp2000 (next version) mini like in high school and they were spending so much money on computers I went into it in 1977 and had majors in chemistry, biology, math, and computer science. Didn't want to get left behind. What I did was work 15 years (some in government) and essentially am semi retired with no kids. Sort of, you know govt. retirements. This is much longer than nick next door who worked 6 months in I-t yet has 2 children. My niece's husband mike/mickey mouse got his law degree and still has college debt with 3 kids and only worked 6 months also. Expensive nanny. I have that android thing going and it is taking off. I donate to soup kitchens (ironically brought them steak to serve the other day), volunteered at the library in computers, and volunteered at the catholic church and hospitals but am now an atheist/agnostic.
 
Since this...

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On the West Coast of New Zealand it was in fact the second TV channel.
 
I have been into tech as long as I have been into scifi which is always.. as an interest in one often leads to an interest in the other. I was 6 when star wars came out and I was in awe at the tech even though I knew it wasn't real (though I wished it was), shows like star trek, battle star and space 1999 had the same effect. For me and my friends it was all about lightsabers, robots, laser weapons and bad *** star ships... And yes I do own a replica saber, ... aaand a jedi robe... they were gifts... Dont judge, lol.
 
I feel in love with computers the first time I saw and touched them during the 1990s.
I first bought my first personal computer in 1998: Pentium 166mhz.
Next computers were a Celeron 1.7ghz in 2002, a core i3-530 in 2009, a core i5-3570k in 2011.

my only tv purchases were a Samsung fhd led tv (2011?) which died 2 weeks ago and a Samsung 40" 4k tv purchased three days later.

in so far as cellphones were concerned, I had my first phone in 2000: a nokia 5110.
after I lost my nokia 5110 in the same year, I bought a nokia 3210.
I got a hand-me-down nokia 6110 in 2003, a hand-me-down nokia 7210 in 2005, a hand-me-down Samsung galaxy y in 2010(?).
I got a hand-me-down blackberry 8890 and a hand-me-down htc 8x in april 2014.
after I lost my Samsung galaxy y in 2015, I bought my first cherry mobile smartphone: 'android one'.
I bought a second smartphone: 'android one g1' in Christmas 2015.

I don't own any gaming console.

the other tech purchase I made in 2016 was a MIMO external antenna for my Huawei b-593 lte modem.

I don't post often at techspot but I usually read tech news from these sources: techspot, neowin, anandtech, vr-zone...
 
When my godfather gave me my first casette player with integrated speaker (mono). I was 5 or 6 years old. Shortly after he presented me with an external speaker enclosure and a full-range philips speaker unit. He showed me how to build a speaker, solder the wires, and how to pull apart the casette player and insert a 6,3mm jack outlet for the external speaker.

From that moment on I knew that electronics was my hobby. He gave me my first soldering iron shortly after and I started making my own small kits.

Through the 80's it was primarely sound electronics that I messed with, but around 1988 I bought a second hand Commodore 64, and got hooked on computer software.

A few years later I build my very own first computer, an Intel 386DX with 4 Megs of RAM, a 50 Mb Harddrive and a Cirrus Logic VGA card.

... and the rest is history, as they say...
 
Relocated to intelligence/counter intelligence corps during my military service after I had had enough of jumping out of aircraft, getting shot at and shooting back in the 70's
 
I think my first real interest came with calculators and in the early 70's, but my real fascination with technology began with the tabletop Missile Command and Pac Man games and the old solid state Bally and Williams pinball machines at the local arcade - not so much playing them but watching them being maintained and serviced. A fascination that lingered well after the technology aged and led to me acquiring both some years later for my own home - and judging by the awe and delight they produced in visitors who instantly rushed to play them, that fascination was widespread.

Computer-wise I'd say it would be signing up for the first computer science class at my high school and finding out that to continue past the introduction we each had to build out own 8-bit computer to advance through the class. The pride in competing to produce the neatest wire-wrapping and soldering, through building a working system, and finally - producing code that actually ran as it should - cemented my abiding interest in computers.

Sounds alot like my experience. I was lucky enough to go to a school that offered computer courses and electronics classes. At the time I just wished they had better facilities. 20 people soldering in a basement can cause some health issues without good ventilation.
 
Went on my first programming course in 1965 when I was a young 28 yo :)
Testing was on an IBM 1401 (punched cards as input) which was first introduced by IBM in 1959.
Spent the remainder of my working life in IT from programmer thru to management.
Enjoyed every minute of it and at 78 yo still spend most of my spare time surfing the internet.
Amazing to look back over years and see how technology has changed to world we live in.
 
Had an elecotronics 'kit' in the mid-late 70s, and then a Spectrum 48K when they came out and a tech-related job since '79
 
Ray Bradbury - Rocket Summer (1st chapter of Martian Chronicles). Better than Hardy Boys!

National Science Foundation - 'Space Science' summer program 1966. 90 kids with regular doses of Phil Stern (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1991QJRAS..32..485S) for a whole summer - wonderful time. They taught and we learned (I.e., differential calc in 3 days then on into spatial mechanics, etc.). Nothing else ever came close.
 
P51-D sn007? surely that's no coincidence!!!
p-51d, I love the mustang airplane, and drive a mustang.
007, because I'm a fan of the ORIGINAL James Bond movies.
The plate on my car is NA-P51D, North American (the company who built it), P-51D my favorite version.
Or, "in-a Mustang", or North American Mustang (the car).
 
I remember being about 6 and my uncle playing this game on his ColecoVision called Sewer Sam. I was hooked from then on. I also enjoyed taking apart every piece of electronic I could get my hands on... Ah the memories.
 
Learned Morris Code then got my HAM license, built my first computer from Heathkit, then got my first Apple in the wooden case and have been going ever since. Now days we build and install fully automated systems for industry in a variety of capacities and all of this without a single class in computers, software, or language.
 
I would say when I was a kid during the SNES era. Unlike my peers I didn't just like the games, but was obsessed with size of the games and how much stuff they were able to fit within a certain amount. How many colors it can display at the same times, and what they can do with it graphically. It's hard to explain, but those were good times.
 
I have been into tech as long as I have been into scifi which is always.. as an interest in one often leads to an interest in the other. I was 6 when star wars came out and I was in awe at the tech even though I knew it wasn't real (though I wished it was), shows like star trek, battle star and space 1999 had the same effect. For me and my friends it was all about lightsabers, robots, laser weapons and bad *** star ships... And yes I do own a replica saber, ... aaand a jedi robe... they were gifts... Dont judge, lol.
I swear that the star trek game, trek73, I stole from high school and typed in in college for all students to play in 1976 enthused hollywood to make star wars in 1977 and star trek movies. Great manager at mcdonalds where I then worked let me list it off on their paper terminal. Ran on hp 2000 mini computers. 5000 lines of code. 1973 was the year my father built our new house in darien, il. We don't live in a house now. I call it the process of assumption. Must have run in to some extraterrestrials. Kind of gave up my medical career to run this game, but earned a bigger salary in civil service computing anyway for a while.
 
Since forever really, can't remember when I wasn't fascinated by technology, electronics, mechanics, anything and everything that moves. I remember taking apart VCRs and using their motors that I'd rig up to RC cars to make them faster, add batteries, I had no idea what I was doing but somehow always figured it out, just one of those knacks I guess.
 
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