How did you get started????

[chefhmboyrd]

When I was in Chicago (late 80' early 90's) we had some computerized warehouse inventory tools (picking packing shipping)
it was all proprietary software
then when i came to Nashville i rarely used them until AOL in the mid 90's
didn't own one of my own though
it wasn't until i started working for Ryder in 2003 that i used them everyday.
eventually got one of my own
now i have more computer power in my house then most 3rd world countries.

i recently earned an Associate's in IT and going back for my Bachelor's in Jan.

[Teddybear]

lets see i trained in college to b a coputer programmer and learned basic, rpg, rpgII and rpgIII aloing with cobal and cobal2. was told we had to learn basic to learn the other langugages however we would never use it since computers were math based and we would need to know a math based programing language. about half way with school lotus 123 came out and the rest is history as they say.

I had a Tandy 101 however we didnt have internet as a matter of fact it was a tape drive and we had a old cassette tape recordered hooked up to it for the programs.

the next computer i had was the qualcomm on my truck that is kinda like a word processor from back in the day now it is a touch screen that i HATE

my first internet computer if u can call it that was Web-TV. I loved it i had a huge tv and could see it from my couch without have to squint to read it

[ruby_woo]

We took computer classes in elementary school. I loved computer day! We used those old Apple computers to learn typing, and played games like Oregon Trail and Math Munchers.

When I was about 11 or 12, my dad bought a computer that ran on DOS, and my sister and I played this silly Barbie fashion game, and a Carmen San Diego game. Eventually we got AOL, and my sister and I used to troll the AOL chatrooms until my parents figured out the parental controls. We figured out how to undo the parental controls, and my mom decided to move the computer from the basement to the dining room, where she could watch us from the kitchen or living room.

Our family would get into epic fights over use of the internet vs. use of the phone, and who wanted to use what and when. Oh, dial-up...

In high school, we used the Mac computers Ruffryder pictured in the school library, and to work on the yearbook layout. This was about 1999 I think? High school teachers were still resisting the internet as a research tool at the time, and emphatically told us that we HAD to cite actual books in our research papers, they did not want us using just the internet.

I received an iBook as a high school graduation present, and have been using Mac laptops at home ever since.

[Corkey]

Mom had a Commodore 64 keyboard. She played pong on it for days.

I didn't get a computer until 1998. I had no idea how to use it but I played around till I figured it out. I am no techie. When in 1999 my company went to computer generated reports and keyless entry I learned a few programs. I had a PC at home. When I moved from Ca, I left it to my ex's daughter. We now have Mac Pro's and we plug along nicely.

[PaPa]

Wow...what a loaded question, princessbelle. I will see how well I can tackle the answers....

1980 or 1981...I took a computer math class at the beginning of 9th grade. The schools computer was one preformed piece with monitor and keyboard. It had a modem which sat on the top and it had two holes in which the telephone receiver went. We would dial a number for a college nearby and hook up to their computer system which took up a whole room. We were then able to learn computer programming for that time. Each line began with a base ten number in sequence and we could insert go to commands if ___ then go to ____ commands...etc...I don't remember a whole lot of that but then again it was 31 or 32 years ago!

Fast forward to the mid 80's I had experience with a commodore 64 that my brother purchased. Later in the 80's my brother tore apart a premoulded one piece computer and designed his own. He had written to IBM and Apple and received schematics. He played around with it in the garage until he had a useful computer for what he wanted to use it for. Today, my brother has his own business and deals with high temperature extreme hardware for companies like Boeing, Lockheed, and the military.

Early 90's I was in college and learned Word Perfect, Quattro 1, 2, 3, and other programs.

Mid 90's I bought a Brother Word Processor for my own needs.

I then advanced to a Dell, an HP and today I am still a faithful buyer of HP products. It meets my needs and has never left me stranded.

[Martina]

I don't recall the types of computer. I was in grad school and using the school's computers. Many universities had a gopher. It seemed like accessing the wealth of the world to navigate to a university's gopher and be able to download docs on every subject.

I recall being able to make a few commands and see everyone on the network. Anybody could. Then you could email from the command line if you wanted to.

We had a text only gay forum at the University of Michigan -- called Confer. We mostly knew each other in real life. We argued so ferociously on there and then would run into each other at the library, cafe or a party and be so pleasant and friendly. One of those guys became a famous economist. One a porn star for a while. It was the good old days when gay men and lesbians talked to each other.

I didn't have a computer of my own for a long time, but I remember occasionally using a roommate's and dialing in to MichNet for access. I stored alot of my research on my server space, and sometimes needed it at night for something. Usually I'd go to the computer center, which was open 24/7, but sometimes the snow was too deep. Wow. Haven't thought of that stuff in forever.

[Ginger]

I forgot to say, I taught computer applications in a high school in the late nineties, and took two online courses: computer hardware repair and website design. Both of course, full of concepts that are hilariously outdated by now.