I think it was around 2000/2001 ,I used to play championship manager a lot , back in the day when I had to share a computer with my dad and brother
20 years earlier for me: 1968 - punch card FORTRAN IV .Like a lot of people my age, from the UK it was a BBC in primary school about 30 odd years ago.
S, as we talked about it earlier in another thread, I have used my beloved typewriter and felt no need to have anything else.On any sort of a regular basis? 1994, when I bought my first computer.
Until then, I had never used them - and never needed to use them, but had toyed with them on occasion in university libraries, being given tutorials in their use.
However, my first encounter with what was called a computer occurred in the early 70s, when I was in primary school and my brother and I were invited into the local university to see (and play 'noughts and crosses' against) this amazing thing out of a science fiction movie or novel.
That thing took up a wall. Before then, I had heard of them, but had never laid eyes on one in real life.
On any sort of a regular basis? 1994, when I bought my first computer.
S, as we talked about it earlier in another thread, I have used my beloved typewriter and felt no need to have anything else.
My first "encounter" with a PC (the one mentioned in my post) was at work. I mainly played "Digger" and "Worms" on it.![]()
In the 70's I used a terminal to connect to mainframes and learned a bit about basic and BBSs through a 300 baud modem. When the 1200 baud came out, WOW it was fast!
The first Personal Computer was an Apple ][ plus around 1980. When we first got it, we had to use a tape recorder to load programs until the two 5 1/4" floppy drives came in. Very cool experience learning how to use it.
Same route. I had to learn on my own how to use a computer. Became obsessed with it and the wonderful software like Norton Commander, Norton Utilities, ChiWriter, Word Perfect etc.Likewise, I used my typewriter until the early 1990s.
Then, one day (or week, or month) I had an epiphany. Many new discoveries - VHS cassette players or recorders, for example, were something that I never felt the need to master, and it won't really a matter of life and death - technology would supersede this sooner or later and replace it with something better, or, at least, more profitable.
But, I do remember realising in the early 90s, (on a trip to eastern Europe, no less) that computing and the internet were on a par - in their capacity for revolutionary and transformational societal, political and cultural change - with the invention of the printing press, paper and moveable type in the 15th century. I'm an historian by profession, after all, trained to take the long view, appropriately set in a wider context.
That is when I arrived at the conclusion that I had a window of several years to master this technology, or be left behind forever as the world changed around me. I was already a teacher at the university for a number of years by that point. Within months, I had a computer. I then had to learn how to use it, and persuade people to teach me. (And did.)
I still find amazing these machines.TRS-80 Color Computer. Late 1980. I was 10.
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