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My First PC
There's been a computer in the house since 1983. The first one was a Commodore 64. It had a tape drive. I remember playing video games on it. Next was a 286. I typed a few papers on it. (I liked the typewriter much better). Then came a 486 with Windows 3.1. I actually liked this computer. It was easier to use. I typed papers on it and played a lot of Taipei and Tetris. In 1992 took a computer class at the local Junior College, and all of a sudden all those strings of letters and slashes at the c:\> made sense. Technically speaking, my first computer was this large mysterious tower that I took with me to college in 1994. It had a 486/40, a CD-ROM drive, and a 340 meg hard drive. It ran Windows 3.1 over DOS 6.22. I actually managed to install a SoundBlaster card with step-by-step coaching over the phone from my dad. I typed papers on it. I got the first PC I really consider my own in late 1995. It had a 486DX4/100 processor in it, 16 megs of RAM, a quad speed CD-ROM, this new kind of drive called a Zip Drive, a 28.8 modem, and am 808 MB hard drive. My first attempt at upgrading was a miserable failure. My dad sent me 32 MB of RAM for Christmas and told me it was easy to install - I just had snap it in. He forgot to mention that I needed to insert the RAM at a 45 degree angle and then snap up. To make a long story short, I bruised my hands and put a hairline crack in the motherboard; upon rebooting I fried the CPU and modem. After a week in the shop and $200, the box came back with a Cyrix P-120, a 33.6 modem, and 48 MB of RAM. Various other snafus, mostly due to the fact that I was using Win 95a (can we say buggy POS?) had me sending the box off to computer shops, but crikey, that got expensive - especially on my $5.50/hour part-time wages. Then one day in the remainder bin of a book store, I saw Upgrading and Fixing PCs for Dummies. Good thing I bought it. About a month later my computer began making an ominous humming noise. With the help of the book, I determined that my power supply was dying. I read the book, procured the right kind of power supply, unplugged the computer, and slid back the case cover. About 15 minutes in, I realized I was going to have to take it almost completely apart to get every last tentacle of the power supply unplugged. I broke down and sobbed for about 20 minutes. What was I going to do? I simply didn't have the money to send it to a shop. My dad lived four hours away. My fiancé knew even less about computers than I did. And I really needed to start writing a term paper. Drying my tears, I set to work, consulting the book every step of the way, labeling every part, and taking copious notes. I managed to get it all back together without a hitch - okay, I forgot to put the floppy ribbon back on, but a quick phone call to a friend got that sorted out. By the end of the day, glowing with pride, I started my term paper. That box was mine now. I knew what was in it. I knew how it all fit together. I could take it apart and put it back together like it was Tinker toys or an Erector set. It was no longer a scary and powerful beige mystery box parked on the corner of my desk; it was my computer, "Brimstone Love." I upgraded Brimstone several times: 2 gig hard drive, 32x CD-ROM, 56k modem, SCSI card, Jaz drive, and scanner. I began rooting around in Win95 to see what I could do. (Oh hello, right mouse button! So that's what you're for!) I even survived a catastrophic hard drive failure, and with help from my guru got back up and running in a day. Brimstone was my computer. I knew how he worked, and if he got sick, I could fix him. Computers were no longer mysterious boxes inspiring atavistic terror? They could even be (gasp!) extensions of oneself. I owe my knowledge of and enthusiasm for computers to my adventures with Brimstone and college student poverty. Thinking From the Box is your column, your turn to share your thoughts with other PC users. Recent Thinking From the Box
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