Memories…
Wow, I stumbled on this – and I so remember it.
I remember my first Pascal (turbo of course), that really got me started programming at home, in my spare time. That was the beginning of the end.
And when I got Turbo C, that was it. I was hooked. I cannot count the number of times I had to reboot my computer learning C – as I was constantly overwriting memory in the beginning – but it was worth it. How many times did I have to flip flop the floppies “Insert Library Disk 1″, “Insert Library Disk 2″ – because I had no hard drive…
A blast from the past.
This morning, as I was crawling under my desk to get to the USB hub to plug in yet another device, I was thinking “remember back in the day when every device you bought came with an ‘expansion card’ and you had to crack the case to install hardware – this is too easy”.
My first hard disk – partition it into 32mb or less partitions (DOS didn’t do more than 32mb on a disk back then…), install hardware, reinstall hardware, load drivers (by hand…), have at a really really slow disk..
My first computer CD device – hardware to install first, then lots of device drivers (by hand, edit that config.sys)…
My first scanner, ditto
Modem… the same.
and so on. It is very much easier these days, but you lose a bit of knowledge with that ease of use. Maybe that is why I had to opportunity to write this…
