How did you start with Tech?

Hello!

So I would say that it is REALLY easy to say that anyone on this entire damn forum likes their computers and technology, whether it be for a career, or just a hobby, we know that you have a deep passion for it. We also know that there are many different kinds of you, from the Linux command line guru to the basic tech enthusiast, we have this passion which has been sparked by something.

For myself, I got started in technology in a sortta interesting way. So at my school, they have a chapel thing (Its Christian) with plenty of mics and whatnot. Any way, they have a pretty neat little sound system with a plethora of mics and instruments for all your PRAISE BE JEBUS, with a 32 channel audio mixer and rack mounted amps and compressors. Funnily enough, when I started working there as a junior sound engineer, I knew nothing about sound systems (Had to teach it myself as I missed out on training) and knew about the same with computers in general. Up to that point, a barely used a computer aside from some games here and there. However, I started to get interested and began my pilgrimage of knowledge, researching all out sound systems and how to actually use the goddamn mixer. This then after a period of a few months deviated into technology, of which I have had a passion for ever since. Since then, I have learned so much with Operating Systems, how computers work, I am apart of the PC Master Race, the "Wall O' Monitor Club" Hey, @wendell :) ) and have definitely tried to convert others over to the dark side of the nerd, (I have succeeded, albeit not with my parents #NerdProblemsFixingTheEmails).

So what are your stories? I am absolutely certain that there are a great many tales that far exceed that of mine.

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As a kid I was very curious and would often pull apart or even break toys to try find out how they worked, some of these toys were pocket digital game things and calculators and circuitry always interested me the most as a kid, since then I've been tinkering around with computers and other technology in an effort to find out more about them :D

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Oh yeah, I know right, Every time I buy or see a piece of Technology I just have an uncontrollable urge to take it apart and see how it works. I guess its kinda funny how previous generations that would be exactly the same but with cars or some other machinery. I guess nothing really changes, eh?

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I appeared to have always had a knack for technology, and I had a tendency to take shit apart. I understood tech and how to use it more than most of the people around me. I've wanted to build my own computer for a while, but it wasn't until I watched YouTube videos from the likes of Tek Syndicate and LTT that I really wanted to learn more about what goes into the device we take and take for granted these days. And so, here I am.

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Yeah I agree, those guys have inspired me quite abit.

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Commodore 64 & Lego Technic in the 90's.

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I started off with a Spectre (not sure what model but I remember it had a tape drive), then I had a Commodore 64 for a while, then my dad when I was 12 got our first 386 because the high school I was enrolled in wanted at least 40% of the homework done on computer. from there I upgraded, learned overclocking learned basic programming all sorts of things over the past 24 years. I've decided recently to pack in my trade to go and start in the field full time (currently doing a diploma in IT, network) and looking on furthering this at university if I get the grades. People think I'm nuts starting on this path at 36 years old, I don't, worst comes to the worst I'll just start my own company.

mate, I still haven't started overclocking yet, (not because I am scared, but my GPU was pre overclocked and don't see a need to overclock it further and my CPU is still using default cooler to my dismay), and how is your degree going? Working hard or hardly working?

I wanted some 3D Quake game and in order to do the 3D I had to install a video card (Rendition or whatever it was). Going through that process of editing autoexec/config and installing the video card with a friends help gave me the bug when I realized how easy all of this computer stuff actually was... Couple years after that I landed a job on a HD supporting some software/hardware (ran novel lite over dos) which turned into building all their PCs they sold and doing bigger rollouts (HP) to schools and businesses... That was 20 years ago and I've been a net/sys/sales engineer ever since.

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got my first computer. Messed with it. Learned all about hardware and broke windows. Reinstalled windows and triple booted Windows, OpenSUSE, and the distro hop of my choice. Boy was it fun

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mate I swear breaking things have taught me so much :)

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When I was about 11-13 my friend was really smart with computer and I wanted to be as well (to fit in)

I was always given for free very old windows 9x machines, I had no money or parts to fix them so I had to learn by myself how to fix them.

Imagine only have a few old windows 9x machine in 2004-2005 with no internet, that was my childhood

haha yep, I love just grabbing ppl's old systems they don't want anymore and putting linux on it to use later

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I do this as well, my grandmother got a tablet not long ago, so I'm gonna get all of her photos off of the hard drive and then put Lubuntu or something on it, do some cluster computing or something for some fun

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Yeah I was looking at clusters alot a while back, really want to work with one but don't have enough computers lying around.

yet.

I was looking at proxmox for a virtualization cluster. Pretty neat.

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My Dad has always worked within the technology industry. He started out setting up physical systems but then gradually transferred over to software engineering so there's always been a decent amount of technology in the house and because of that I guess I was just was pulled into it by association. I'm actually really glad that it did because it's nice to be able to talk to a family member about technology and such plus I can ask for advice within the industry. I even did a two week work placement where he used to work, setting up systems and what not. It was an awesome experience. I'm now studying Computer and Network Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University and loving it! So excited to start working in the industry.

As for specifically getting into PC gaming, I've always been a gamer but it wasn't until TF2 until I went over to the PC. I bought the The Orange Box on 360 and was huuuugely disappointed that it wasn't updated like it was on the PC so I managed to get my Dad to salvage an old 8600GT that wasn't being used and I whacked it in an equally salvaged Pentium D Dell workstation and it all began from there. Been on PC ever since.

Alright, Story time:

Probably back in year 8 when we were required to own a laptop that the school provided at $300; an HP Probook 4320s with the DVD drive taken out because "it was too easy to break" with a whole bunch of monitoring software that couldn't be removed. The next year, I heard about this thing called "Linux" and how it was faster, free and you could do anything you wanted with it with no restrictions. Sick of how locked down the school laptop was, I downloaded Debian squeeze and burned it onto a USB. Unfortunately, the BIOS was also locked down and so I couldn't boot from USB. After searching, I found something called wubi from a different version of linux, Ubuntu. So I downloaded that, used wubi, swapped the Ubuntu disk for the Debian disk, chose Ubuntu from the windows boot menu and booted into Debian! I installed it, making sure I still kept Windows so the IT guy wouldn't freak out and rebooted. Grub started up and it couldn't find Debian. Apparently, I installed it onto the USB! and now it wouldn't boot properly! I didn't use the laptop for months until I mustered up the courage to go to the IT guy to get the hard drive reformatted. After getting a stern talking to about messing with the hard drive I devised a new plan..
I installed virtualbox on the Pentium D PC I got from my Grandpa, hooked up an old laptop hard drive from a broken laptop, created a VMDK pointing to the hard drive and installed Lubuntu on it through virtualbox. I then opened up the laptop and replaced the hard drive with the one I prepared... And it worked!
I then proceeded to break the installation numerous times as a first-time Linux user would but learned from those mistakes and made sure not to delete system files and use chown on the root folder and to make triple sure which drive is which when using dd.
I've now restored multiple of my friend's school laptops into working condition, built my own PC and been using Linux as my daily driver ever since.

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so what was it like growing up with a tech guru around 24/7? My dad is from the west in the outback on a sheep station in Australia (I'm Aussie) so he doesn't know much about computers.

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well weren't you a hell-raiser! Did the IT guys hate you? I used to think my IT guys at my school hated me. They didn't know who I was, but I would always fiddle with some things and find the loopholes to get into CMD when they blocked it and stuff. I think alot of us had that moment when we first installed / dual booted linux and had that moment where we just froze and thought "Oh crap."

Even to this day, it's awesome. Obviously it's rare that I require help from him now but sometimes he'll still know how to fix something that I've exhausted all my options with. It was especially helpful when I got into the "fuck with the computer until something breaks" stage and again when I began to build my own computers.

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