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

The long path to maturity

The day the earth stood still

It is October of 1996 and i am at the local newsagent's looking at the magazines.  And then my eye catches this: T3 magazine, issue 01.  A magazine called "Tomorrows Technology Today".  Have you ever felt this "love at the first sight" thing?  Now really, have you?  Well i have not, but i think that this moment of apocalypsis was as close as it can get.  I can only liken this experience to what a smoker feels when he smokes the first cigarette after fortyfive days of (obviously unsuccessfully) trying to quit.  For all you smokers (an ex-smoker is always a smoker) out there, this is what it felt like.  You know like a little window suddenly pops open through your misery and you can take a quick peek at he gardens of Heaven.  Instead of incoherently mumbling about how much i miss smoking right now though, i think it will be better if i get back on this one with a dedicated post.  That's a promise.

Back to day zero, then.  I see the cover of T3 magazine and focus on the Casio TV remote control watch on the top right corner.  And i think: "This magazine will change my life".  No really, i did think exactly this.  And my prediction was true.  For anyone laughing out loud, let me briefly remind you of the dark ages of 1996 (in Greece, at least). 

Internet access was a privillege of 53% of the population, as of last year! One can only imagine the situation back in 1996.  I looked around but could not find any stats.  My guess would be a maximum of 1% penetration and that would be univerisities and large corporates mostly.

But even if you look at the big picture: no Google, no Youtube, no Amazon, no eBay, you name it - it was not there.  Can you imagine this?  So where could a gadget lover find his beloved gadgets?  How could one get to even know what there is out there?  Magazines.  Yep.  T3 was there first.

The happy days

I really loved this magazine. Period. I have bought (and enjoyed from cover to cover) every single issue for more than a decade and then migrated to the zinio version on the iPad. I devoured the sacred information that was provided.  Gadgets i could not even believe existed were there for me to grasp.  Being held by gorgeous girls.  What else can a man want? (My big brother's opinion regarding the whole T3 / cover girls thing is a family secret i dare not reveal. Still, one may hypothesize...)

Walking (or rather sleeping late) through my early years as technical student i started indulging into my passion for small electronic things with an LCD screen, making no discriminations. I wanted everything. Especially cellphones and later smartphones. Greed was my middle name. I even had to get a job in order to satisfy my tremendous appetite for handheld beauties. Which was not a bad thing after all, but you know, once you start it is not easy to get back to the "relaxed days" of the student life...

But still i was (more or less) happy. Those lucky few who truly are "sick enough" among you might confirm that the best thing about getting a new gadget is not the gadget itself but rather the anticipation after you decide you are buying it and before opening the box. The all too familiar rash that powers us from deep within and turns us into true superheroes who will do anything in their might to manage and buy their object of desire before the stores close for the weekend, if you know what i mean...

I have to admit it, i have enjoyed more than my fair share of gadgets over this happy decade. Bear in mind though that trying to satisfy my addiction (with a limited budget) actually meant that i had to make choices. Hard choices. Including not only gadgets, but also experiences one may share with other people. I still remember skipping a very nice vacation when one of the first ever smartphones  - the infamous Nokia 7650 - was introduced, because uhmmm you know, i needed the money. Still, things were good, life was good and gadgets kept coming and going.

Dies Irae

The year is 2006, well before the economic recession that plagues Europe and especially Greece the last three years. Have i told you that T3 mag changed my life? Well that is when i stop reading it for a whole bunch of reasons including the following:

1. I eventually/unfortunately reached the age where the commodity of free time became scarce.
2. The internet (web mostly, but also youtube and forums) provided a great amount of gadget related info.
3. I had not enough storage space for the print version, while the electronic one i did not devour the way i used to with the mags. Can't really say why, since i am an ebook kind of person (absolutely love my Kindle paperwhite which actually is the only device - other than a phone -that i use EVERY day) and i certainly have no objections reading a mag on the iPad. It just happened i guess, kind of like the way relationships tend to deteriorate over a sufficient time period. Or like Windows tends to become "heavier" after some months of not formatting the hard disk.
4. My available budget to be spent on gadgets required a rather serious "reconsideration".

Above all though, i think i just  grew up (just a tiny bit) a little. I of course still enjoy gadgets but these days there has to be something really good in order to justify the urge that drills a hole in my pocket. It's not about features only, it's about design also. It may also have to do with my conversion from "vicious Apple hater" to "someone who appreciates fine devices no matter who manufactured them". After all, everything is made in China nowadays, isn't it?

A device needs to be good looking, simple to use and solve (instead of create) problems in order to deserve a place in my life. Now that i think about it, the same principle could possibly apply to women also. Nuhhh, just kidding. With women it's infinitely more complicated than that. Simple laws of logic do not apply. All deterministic theories were proven insufficient. No man ever understood women. Ever. Ask Al.

It is not about just me, either. The world over, consumers have become more demanding and intelligent, environmentally conscious and sceptical. The economic recession has indeed helped here, by forcing the average consumer into maturity.  Competition is fierce and this same consumer is the ultimate winner. It is not just about products, it is about life changing devices that provide a great experience and represent great value for money that is not being carelessly spent, not anymore. Beware manufacturers, you have to try your best, to innovate, to even anticipate our needs, to provide great after sales support. That is the only way you will succeed in taking our hard earned cash.

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