I can’t remember how on earth I got in to programming dang gum it. When we got our first Pentium PC about 2000 or 2001. She had Win98 in a FAT16 partition, like a 250MB hard drive, 32MB RAM, and maybe a 133Mhz clock speed. I looked over the system, all the menus and stuff. Usually I didn’t toy with changing stuff for fear that if I fouled it up Ma would kill me. It was technically her E-Machine, and my replacement for WebTV (Yes I first browsed the WWW on one). I spent upwards of 8 hours a day looking through Windows and surfing, mostly Mobile Suit Gundam stuff and made a great study of the One Year War era (I had just learned their was more then Gundam Wing). After awhile the box got a bit cranky as we didn’t even know how to power it doen properly. We we’re told how with out first (a Tandy 1000) not this one. Eventially the HDC or Hard Drive Controller failed, we then we’re given our pastors old PC.
A Packered Bell 1998 machine with like a PII 233Mhz, 64mb of RAM, 2.4GB drive & a dual boot of Win98 and MS-DOS. Never used the DOS for fear of not being able to reboot into Windows and getting killed. When it’s copy of Windows died we got a Dell 4550, P4 2.0Ghz, 256MB RAM, 120GB drive, CD-Burner and WinXP. I was of course up-set with XP but estatic at the machine, never knew they had gotton so powerful. January 2002 I got my first PC Game and started a war with ma (hates idea of PC Games). I eventially got into gaming and made a few friends, got more and more into the computer after awhile.
Eventially for some fricken reason I can’t remember :! got into programming. A friend I met & trained with in one of my games who was into Python showed me this document one day and changed my path. I started to see the diffrence between the “Hackers” I’d seen and delt with. (Script Kiddies and P.I.T.A. Ballock heads) we’re not the same as people who, well actually dug computers rather then abused them. I started learning about UNIX and started to repsect people /w computer skills more. Eventially I desided to follow my friends advice and learn to use a unix like OS, he loved Linux and I always wondered about it. Sure enough, having to read the manual before installing type I am. I did *ALLOT* of research and eventually found out I ether would go with Debian, Slackware or FreeBSD and GNU/Linux wasn’t my bag so FreeBSD it was. In my search of what a *nix desktop would look like some how I was blessed with finding PC-BSD, I wanted to learn but I didn’t want to crack my skull open. I figured /w PC-BSD if I turned out to be a schmuck without WinXP I’d still be able to learn at my own pace. Sure enough ma wouldn’t let me repartition her computer. I registored on the techsupport forums @ http://www.pcbsd.com/ and hung around, hoping to grep some information while I awaited away to buy parts to build my dream girl. One of the people we work for (an IT manager) gave me an old PC, Monitor, and Keyboard to install it on when he found out.
I still have that comp and it’s the “Vectra II” lady I ssh around with (best *BSD box I got too hardware wise). After reading allot of the related matter in the handbook I tried to install FreeBSD at 0400 local, forgot to put my user as part of the wheel group and was to darn tired to figured out how to get to root access. Yeah I know, even for a first timer it was bad but heck I’d have been better doing it drunk then so late/early after a work day. Installed PC-BSD 1.0RC1 in the morning, best thing I ever did.
Since then, I’ve learned so much, crap I don’t even need X after I made my self learn to live in a console. I still hang around the forum in the hopes that as I learn I can help some body else to learn, I don’t think I’m half as smart as most of the regulars but I try with the time I got. if it’d give the expirenced users time to anwser some important question I’m happy to deal with simple stuff. If I know it I say it, if I can try or aid some how I try to, if it’s some thing the person should’a looked up I try to link them and give them a summery rather then a “RTFM and go away” approch like I’ve read which I’ve in some forums but never sceen around PC-BSD. I thank my friend and the author of that page very much. It opened me up to allot of learning, I started out on Windows with C++ and bergined out. It gave me the feeling to start learning other languages even while trying to comprohend the basics (and still am compared to a professional programmer). It led me in search of PC-BSD and freedom, waking up to Windows is like booting up and getting “Good morning retard, care to get bossed around again?” which, is not my idea of design. Any software that thinks it knows more then any user could _ever_ know and that it’s omni-portent is a very bad idea. I’ve always liked to know about things I like and how they work, computers of course have always interested me. Until I got on one much to much it never accured to me a computer could be some thing for joe blow, instead of just Ph.D Rocketman. Some how my interest in programming spread out, I dunno how to explain it. From hardware, to software, to the net it’s all a joy. It’s just so awesome, to be able to learn. I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough skills at computers and programming to be able to write any thing useful or really help any one, but I can sure as hell enjoy the ride.
May information always flow freely !