Let me introduce myself

SmokeyTheBlair · May 10, 2019

I wish to introduce myself, even though I will likely be immediately forgotten.

I've been a techie since I was about 13 years old when my parents bought me my very first computer: a Tandy 1000 with no hard drive, no modem, 640k of ram, and a built on flash drive with about 1mb of total storage. It ran on DOS 3.1, and Tandy's GUI called Deskmate. Because of this, I couldn't play any games at all, so I started on my 30 year journey(As of this day since it was my thirteenth birthday when I got that PC). I was forced to learn how to use GW BASIC, and I got pretty good at it. For a few years my friends and I would write various little games that got harder and harder for the express purpose of pissing each other off.

I got pretty good at it. Sadly, this system had zero upgrade potential. Happily, I met a man who saw my interest, and found a way to help me learn more.

A week after he learned about my rapport with computers, he pulled up at my door with over a dozen 8088 and 8086 IBM systems that had been recently replaced at a local government office. 20MB and 40MB hard drives, 5 1/4 disk drives, 900 and 1200 baud modems. The best part was that they ALL worked. The second best part was my new keyboard was an original IBM mechanical type M. It wasn't just one either. Every single system had one! and I had NO IDEA what I had at the time! How I wish I had!

These computers gave me a lot of experience in hardware configuration. Remember that nothing I owned ran windows, and I had no high speed internet. All configuaration had to be entered into the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEXC.BAT files, and any error didn't tell you anything. ANything it did tell you couldn't be Googled. If all else failed, you had to employ a hex editor. There was a lot to learn, and having othat many computers meant I could break a lot of things.

...and I broke a lot of things.

Ever catch a computer of fire? I have. Twice. Once was the Tandy (I exploded a capacitor while trying to rewire the onboard sound to support 6 speakers), and once was a 386, which was when I learned how NOT to plug in an AT power supply (Two plugs, can be switched, but shouldn't be).

Then I entered the BBS world. I ran a BBS for almost 5 years called Moe's Tavern, which was absolutely wonderful. Forums like this are the closest comparison, but everyone who used it was local, so you not only met a lot of people, but attacking someone online could easily turn into a knock at your door, so you were polite.

Moe's still has a single blurb on the bbslist textfiles page (Under 709), and I still have a single backup left on a 3.5 1.44mb floppy. I haven't checked it in years though so the disk is probably degraded beyond recovery at this point. I'm afraid to check.

From there I got online through our local cable internet provider. Any Internet access I had before that was via the University computer lab, which meant a 45 minute drive across town. It was at the university that we watched the Shoemaker Levy 9 impact with Jupiter live - the first time anything like that had been possible.

Since then I have done a lot of living, and lot of upgrading, repairing, changing, and generally messing around with every system I could get my hands on. I had developed almost a 6th sense for hardware diagnostics, which many do after going through so much (And intentionally causing problems). I even played with Netbus while that was a thing, though I never did any damage. I would demonstrate it's potential, then inform the person on the system I had connected to that they needed an antivirus app.

I've worked for some big companies, and some tiny companies, and I have a very diverse resume as well. Every single job I've ever had hasn't involved computers, but they always make use of my knowledge. I even spent 5 years as a truck driver until just a few months ago when I was ordered by my doctor to stop or else he would take away my licence. In that though, I still found a way to incorporate technology into my world. I had no less than 5 screens in front of me with weather, traffic, dispatch comms, music, truck specific routes, truck diagnostics, electronic logs...that sort of thing.

If there's anything to be taken from this, it's that I am old school. Very old school. I've used punch cards, I've used laser discs, I've used many tape drives... lots of old tech. I've been keeping as current as I could though, and I have been helped a lot by the LMG world. I am somewhat current in my knowledge right now, and I have gotten back into my comfort zone - repairing computers, with a specialty in laptops, unusual set ups, finding ways to do what others say cannot be done, and doing it all for far, far cheaper than most others can do. For example, I just set up a 5 screen work station from a 10 year old laptop for under $60 because someone said "that's impossible".

I will readily admit if I cannot do something, or if I just don't know how to start, but when someone tells me something cannot be done, I refuse to accept that. Some call it a good trait, others remind me of the fires I started. As a part of this forum, I am willing to offer whatever input I can, and I will be reaching out for assistance whenever required so that I don't burn down another computer, possibly taking my house with it.

Thanks for reading this far folks! I hope to get to know many of you in the future!