Well gang,

I've been up since 3:30 this morning, worked roughly 16 hours and I just got home... Gotta love retail. Anyway, onward to today's post (thank the Gods I wrote it last night)!

SENTIMENTAL:

I'm feeling a little sentimental this holiday season, so

TOP TEN SENTIMENTAL MOMENTS FOR COMPUTER USERS:

1. First Computer

Most of us, our first computer was an OEM. Still, it was the start of everything. Most of us remember not only our first computer, but everything on it as we struggled to "get it".

Be it a 8088 from the dark ages playing "Zork", or the latest gigahertz monster, it's always a memorable moment.

2. First Game

I remember putting down my Atari paddle and trying to do something with this big glowing box that had taken up residence in the family room. In process to formating a "Save Games" diskette for Zork, I managed to wipe out the hard-drive and my old man's last 17 hours of data entry...

3. First Application

Wether or not it was an office program, some fax software or other "non-game" usage, it's usually memorable 'cause it's using your computer for "work", not just as a rather expensive gaming console.

4. First operating sytem load

I Remember my first loads of everything from DOS, to Windows, to Linux to Mac O/S and beyond. Each one involved learning what answers the installer was looking for. Partitioning out drives, and other tidbits of knowledge that were discovered along the way.

5. First Program

Be it HTML, high-level language programming, or just a batch file, having something you wrote work is always memorable!

6. First Build

Nothing like that first build. Slapping it all together and crossing your fingers as you hit the power button. Agony or extasy occur, (sometimes you even get a bit of both) and you either have pride or troubleshooting to look forward to.

7. First Mod

I remember the first time I laid a dremel against the door to my Antec. I was sweating bullets and hoping it would actually work. My Window kit popped in and when I added my blue neon behind it, it was a thing of awe (to me anyway). Thus began my love of modding.

8. First New Operating System

Yep, doing things like loading up Linux after using Windows for years is a whole new realm. You are no longer "Da Man", and you're reading through manuals like a n00b.

9. First Book

I remember the first book I read outside of the standard "Microsoft for Monkeys" (complete with a section on how to fling dung). I basically read a how-to on PC building, and decided to take a class on PC repair... the rest was history.

10. First time helping a n00b

Yep, nothing like helping your first n00b. Part of you is awash with pride, the rest a kind of depression knowing you can never go back. The "Normal" user is now a thing of amusement for you as you try to suffer the endless fools who keep trying to plug their USB cables into firewire ports, and think EISA was the way to go instead of AGP.

Also, there's the period where you've helped enough n00bs... which you graduate up into "First time bashing a n00b"!

First computer was a IBM PS/1 - 486sx 25 with 4 mb RAM and 130 mb hard drive. I had 1MB in the video card - it was a gaming machine. It cost like over $3000 - my grandparents bought it from SEARS...ahhhhh


10. Just the other day I had a "power user" inform me he uses WinMX because Microsoft owns it and they bought the licenses to all songs so you could legally download anything. He he

My first comp was the one with those five and a half inch floppy disks. Had to put one in for every single application.

lol, I remember playing some sort of Disney game. The graphics were like the king of 2D. All I can remember is Donald Duck. I had to do stuff for him or somethin like that...I think it was an rpg.

1. First Computer
A Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1982

2. First Game
1982: "Through the wall" - a breakout clone on the demo tape that came with the Spectrum

3. First Application
First proper one was on an Amstrad box ... can't remember the name of it, but it was a word processor. Sometime around 1989

4. First operating sytem load
Putting Workbench on an Amiga HD ... 1991 or so. PC OS's - not until DOS 6 in 1996.

5. First Program
BASIC in 1982 ... it made a "Zap" noise, & went something like this:
10 FOR N=1 TO 10 STEP 0.5;
20 FOR D=0.1 TO 3 STEP 0.1;
30 BEEP D,N;
40 NEXT N;
50 NEXT D;

6. First Build
First complete build wasn't until 2000.

7. First Mod
2000: The window in "Fishtank"

8. First New Operating System
First OS I knew properly was Workbench/AmigaDOS ... I knew that inside out, so MSDOS & Windows were new to me. Took me ages to get out of the habit of referring to the floppy drive as DF0: instead of A: & the HD as DH0: instead of C: ... I wa always slashing in the wrong direction too. \ or /, I could never bloody remember.

9. First Book
1982: the orange, spiral bound BASIC guide that came with the Spectrum, and INPUT ("Learn programming for fun & the future!" - a serial magazine for BASIC & assembler coding on the home micros of the era

10. First time helping a n00b
Probably helping out a fellow student find their way around a keyboard ... this was in the first first week of a Computer Science degree course.

first computer: a 450MHz AMD K6-2 waif abandoned on the side of the road. Had mobo and everything. No RAM, so my dad put 256MB PC133 in it. Took me three days to learn how to use it. Another week and I was tearing it apart and beefing up things like the heatsink and fan for the processor. Didn't mod my first case until 5 years later. And i'm still deciding on one of these AT cases to mod, will it be the server with wheels on it?

What about First Overclock? Mine was a 450MHz K6-2 pushed to 550 @ 2.6VCore. Idled at 40*C in BIOS.

If I may add:

1st boot of any computer. Along with the first game usually. I remember back when I got my 700mhz Athlon I was able to run Descent 3, a game that ran about 5fps on my 200mhz MMX, on highest options for everything. I think it ranks among the top 5 moments of my life. I don't tell that to many people though. Booting the first computer I put together was a magical moment as well. It would have been better if I had a monitor that went higher than 640x480 and was bigger than 12" or so, but just watching MY computer boot sooo fast was insane.

1st troubleshoot. I mean the one where you felt completely screwed but you found the answer by digging around in some file.

I think the kids coming into computers today don't get a lot of this stuff because they never see the command prompt. And from there I believe that not learning the ropes of the command prompt leads to not knowing how your computer works, so long as your games do. My little brother sits at the computer all day but doesn't know what a driver is. It's a cryin' shame!