Growing up a to be a tech addict/gadget freak (Part I)

The early years

Just a dream at first

When did it all start? That is a tough one to answer, i have to admit.  I do recall a dream (no, i mean really dreaming - while being asleep) i had when i was 10 years old that my parents bought me a computer.  It was an Apple III (sort of) like thing in a bright white dreamy kind of colour.  (<Nerd Alert>Who can identify the brand and model of the laptop the girl is (okay, pretending to be) sleeping on?</Nerd Alert>)

Spectrum ZX

There was a friend of mine (same age) back then who owned (and even programmed in plain old BASIC) a Spectrum ZX (can't remember the exact model though) with a built-in (or maybe detachable - can't be sure) cassette recorder.  I am talking about crazy stuff here.  I can remember going  out in the backyard and playing basketball (i may be the only person on our side of the galaxy that has never ever managed to score a field goal worth of two points and this by no means is an exaggeration) for like 20 minutes while a game was loading!  Didn't matter though because we had plenty of free time and it was an honest to God real computer we were fiddling with.  (For those who may wonder, that particular boy - a true pioneer as far as i am concerned - grew up to become a software developer, of course).

My own PC

So i am 13 years old, it is June 21 (a fantastic sunny Friday as well as the biggest day of the year, if i may add) and my parents bring home as a gift my first ever computer (payed for it a huge amount of money - i think it was actually more than the entire monthly family income).  The infamous IBM PS/1 (model 2011), a real PC with a 80286 10 MHz processor, 1 MByte of RAM, a 30MB HDD and a VGA screen with 256 colours!!!! When i unboxed and connected it to the mains power supply i felt like the world was mine.  I stopped eating for like two days (wish that could happen nowadays also) and sat in front of the monitor for 13 hours straight, until my mom came and physically lifted me from the chair, while at the same time yelling incomprehensible threats that may have been related to her unplugging it forever if i do not go to bed.  Or even smashing it into a thousand pieces with a hammer.  So i went to bed.  But i did not sleep that night.  Who needs sleep when he is 13 and has his own PC (even if that particular IBM PC proved out to be actually incompatible with the cheaper IBM PC compatible ones - i know it sounds peculiar but it sadly is the bitter conclusion)?  Oh, and the year is 1991, let me add.

The video games era

On my PC i used to play adventure games (and i had a pascal compiler - or was it an interpreter? - installed and even coded simple stuff. See dad? It was a good decision spending all that money on my PC).  Lucasfilm games (later called Lucasarts entertainment) and Sierra titles mostly.  Monkey Island, Indiana Jones (The Fate Of Atlantis is possibly the best game i have ever played - my gaming career ended by 1999 though so i must have missed a lot of great things) and the Larry ("My son is becoming a real computer wiz! His teacher called him a 'master byter'".) series were games that i very much enjoyed.  But there were friends of mine (one of them is this guy) who owned games consoles (Sega MegaDrive, Nintendo SNES) and i have spent (way too) many hours of my youth trying to master the fine art of digitised sprites' heart tearing - my favourite fighter was Kano - combos in Mortal Kombat (The SEGA version had all the blood, whereas in the SNES one the censorship forces well uhmmm forced the developers to colour it green! Green blood for God's sake! And those who dictated that freaky mutation are possibly still among us making decisions...)

The seed of my love for all tech things portable

After i bought my first GameBoy (the original one) it clearly became apparent that it was the portability aspect that i mostly enjoyed in gadgets.  Even if i never took them out of my house (i know it sounds a little concerning...)!  I do not know how to explain it though (there has to be some psychoanalytical explanation, of course).  Even nowadays, i am inclined to prefer a high end cellphone to a 60 inch smart TV that costs five times more.  (Please note that in (the slightly remote - i know) chance that you decide to send me a wedding gift.)  To make things even worse i must publicly admit that sometimes i do not even care about the real functionality of a particular product, as long as it is small and shiny and has a motherboard and an LCD screen.

Want to know if you are the "I want it!" or the "Is it useful?" type of person? All you have to do is click this.  It is a pair of Digital Recording Binoculars that costs two grand and is absolutely of no use to me.  But i still want it. What about you? You get it now or should i call the shrink to explain in detail?

The gadget loving days

The day the earth stood still

--- to be continued