One Over X News

Ten - Really Eleven Years Ago

It was a fairly ordinary evening, a Sunday in the middle of January as I recall and one that I got home from working at the store fairly early, early enough to go out shopping with Jina. We went to a store called Nobody Beats the Wiz. At the time it had just opened in Meriden, Connecticut and as Jina had done her homework and had shopped all the competition to determine that they were about as good in pricing as anyone else. She had decided that we needed to buy a personal computer.

As hard as it might be to believe I knew next to nothing about PC's. Ten years before I had thought seriously about buying an Apple for the kid (on only had a son then) but I decided that the kid were far too young and personal computers were far too expensive. When it came time to purchase a computer I was still leaning toward the Apple, though. It was Jina that determined that we needed to be a PC based family. Her logic was that there was a lot more software available for PC's. It was a quanity verses quality decision, I think. I am not saying that the computer that we bought wasn't decent quality. I am even sure that if I still had it and had used to run it it would still work.

There is so much irony in the decision to buy the first computer that I do not even want to begin to elaborate. Be it sufficient that had we selected an Apple nothing would have changed all that much. I was born a geek. Geeks like the neat stuff. The only reason I was a geek without a personal computer was that I was a workaholic.

Keep in mind though that it was Jina that coerced me into the wonderful world of computing.

In 1994 $1600 bought a computer and a monitor that was last year's technology. $2400 bought a computer that was this year's technology. As I was about to learn that was pretty much the truth until Intel started to have some realistic competition. We opted for the $1600 computer system.

It was an IBM Consultant PC with a i486SX25 and an 800X600 15" SVGA monitor. I was amazed that I had actually booted into Windows for the first time. I was elated but also mystified. What exactly was a man like me supposed to do with Windows? I spent a few days figuring out how to set up accounts with Prodigy, AOL and Compuserve. I wanted to decide which one was best. At the time I decided that Prodigy was easier for me to use and I cancelled my other accounts. Other than setting up email and using the computer as a glorified word processor, I didn't do much with 'my' computer. Even though it was purchased for the kids, Rob was the only one of them that showed even a passing interest in it. He was 7 at the time.

Everything that I know about DOS I learned from having to repeatedly fix problems that I was having with Windows. I really started learning about computers about a year later, just before my hospitalization and surgery. Some friends came over and taught me lots of things. From there I started reading magazines and tinkering around. I upgraded that computer as much as I possibly could. When I returned home from the hospital I began to seriously shop for a newer computer. That was really when the madness began.

Jina rues the day webought the first computer. Certainly it turned out to have been necessary in some other ways but it also started a lot of things that ended up separating us. I would have never finished a book without the computers I have owned. I am in awe of anyone that can write a book the old fashioned way. I probably could do it but it would take so much longer. I knew me I would have never had the patience to persevere.

Without the first computer I probably would not be doing what I do for a day job. I would have never met some of the most interesting people that I know, one of them is my best friend.

I mention all this because lately I spend a lot of my time teaching people about their new computers and for the most part they know about as much as I did 11 years ago. I hear their confusion and see their frustration and I remember. Telling them it was worse with DOS and Widnows 3.1 does no good. That is ancient history. The computers of today are capable of doing things that I never dreamed were possible in 1994. I tell them that they should never limit the potential of maximizing the utility of a personal computer. Even if editing a home movie or even writing a book is not in their immediate plans, limiting the scope of the possibilities will only lead to frustration.

Having said that, this is still the advice I have always given. Don't spend too much money on a first computer. By the time you learn how to use the computer you will want something a lot more powerful that will cost a lot more money. If you buy close to the cutting edge you are paying too high a premium for power that you probably benefit from. If you are not going to use the power of the high end machines, why watse the money?

Purchase enough power to do what you have to do with a computer for the time frame that you estimate you will use a computer before upgrading or replacing it. Consider how soon you will upgrade and factor in those costs against getting a slightly more powerful machine. Usually a little more power or more features is a lot less expense than one might think and upgrading relatively soon after a purchase is often more expensive than just buying it in a system in the first place. Computer manufacturers pay a lot less for the parts they use than you or I could.

Realize that if and when the computer bug bites you, the fever will continue along the 'more and more powerful' course for some time. The end of the quest seems to be related to the diminishing of funds, the point of having overcomplicated life to the point that you no longer have any time to do anything new with a computer or, in a few cases, having caught up with technology to the point that you are actually building your own machines becasue you can't wait for the manufacturers to come out with the next greatest thing.

I am still learning, of course but I am supposedly The Expert. At some point along the way I realized that people were asking me questions about computer instead of the other way around. I don't pretend to know everything. No one knows everything. Being expert means that you know where to go to look for the answers that you don't know.

I have not bought a manufactured computer in years. I have built everything that I now use and my kids computers except for Amanda's laptop and her desktop computers which were incredible deals on closeouts. I have build machines for friends. For most people it is too expensive to build computers versus buying something off the shelf. I build computers because I like tinkering. A few people ask me to build something for them because they want a certain type of computer for a certain use. Most manufacturers don't cater to that market at all. In fact, despite their claims of personalizing a PC, I will say that none of them really do. It is a numbers game. There are few people that really want a specific set of features and components, geeks like me. The largest manufacturers understand that makreting toward someone like me is a lost cause. I am a serious enough geek to derrive some pleasure from throwing stuff into a box and firing it up, giving life to a cybernetic friend.

Buying a manufacturered computer is just not the same thing.


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posted by Unknown @ 10:57 PM