My first home game system was a pong clone.
My first home game console was an Odyssey II by Magnavox.
And my first real introduction to computer theory that I can directly tie-in was:
The Cave of Time, by Edward Packard
Yes, it was a book.
Specifically a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
I might not have read the whole series, but I read every one I could find...
The interactive, yet thoughtful, process was more appealing to me at the time than K.C. Munchkin on the Odyssey II.
(And I loved K.C. Munchkin....)
My first home computer was a Commodore VIC-20.
Yes, it had games, but it also had BASIC. A language I could use to control the computer. Not just having fun with software that other people wrote, but writing my own. Creating my own games.
And my first game?
The beginning of "The Cave of Time."
It was perfect. "Print" statements and GOTOs..
I told the computer what to do, and it did it. I understood what it was doing. And, I figured it out by myself, with just the manual that came with the computer. This was something that I understood; it made sense to me.
Why just "the beginning" of the story? No, it wasn't the lack of computer memory; although the VIC-20 only had about 3.5K usable RAM. It was storage..
I had none.. ;-)
At the time, I didn't have a tape drive and definitely not a disk drive. When I turned off the computer, I lost what I was working on.... That has a way of limiting what you want to do..
Nevertheless, I was hooked...
I had a physical representation of what the computer program was going to be in that book. Basically, it was the most detailed design document ever. ;-)
That was really the start, and I never looked back...
I eventually did get a tape drive, but by then I was working on my own really bad games (I'm pretty sure the first one was a choose-your-own-adventure type that involved a dragon..) or typing in games from books/magazines.
I loved the type-in BASIC games..
Now, it would be awesome to say that I got more and more into programming; learned assembler, and I'm now working in the games industry.
That's not what happened.
I continued my programming and computer interest. Moved to a Commodore 64. Then an SX-64. Then an Amiga 500 and 1200.... (More on those at a later date)
And while I did a fair amount of programming, I found that as a programmer, I was a great system/network administrator.
So I spent time working on payphones, phone systems, computer networks, midrange computers. I did some database and C programming here and there, but it was pretty obvious to me that I didn't want to program for a living by then.
But I understood (to a point) how the computers worked.
And when networking came around, I understood that...
So, I'm still working in the industry. Playing with Linux and Windows 2008 servers, switches and routers, ITIL and other acronyms.
And when I go home, I sometimes still fire up the Vic-20 or the O2.
I have a batch of Amiga computers...
I enjoy my work, but never lost the fun I feel working with the older systems.
There's something about those older systems..
They don't do everything for you. But you can generally get them do what you need with a little work. I think it's that balance that I really enjoy.
It's not point and click easy. I have to think about it and work on it.
But it's not assembly language hard...
It's that middle ground that seems to be exactly what I enjoy the most with my technology. I appreciate technology that is smart and smooth enough to appear transparent. But, I would rather interact with my technology in a way that there's a bit of work involved. So that when I do something, I feel pretty good that I got that to work.
There's also the nagging feeling that, for some reason, we haven't advanced as much as I think we should have.... I suppose there will be more on that later also..
Anyway, that's me, as a technical history overview...
I can fill in the blanks over time...
