Weird Emails

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

A computer is just a gadget, just like any other human made tool. Every tool has a learning curve. If you had never seen a screwdriver, and someone asks you to hand them a Philips head screwdriver, you would look at them like they were speaking Martian. And, God forbid if you ask a video game-playing millennial to hand you an oil filter wrench. I'll wager there was a time in the distant past when none of you knew the difference between a barlow and a sod buster - but you learned because you *wanted* to learn...

I've been a science and engineering geek my entire life. When I was 5 years old I would get my Daddy's tools and take apart all my toys. When I got a little older, I learned that putting a 9 volt battery on a toy motor that normally ran on 2 AA batteries made that toy MUCH more interesting, until it started smoking...

I built crystal radio kits and other electronic projects. I learned how to solder, and I made electromagnets and DC motors from scratch. I saw my first real computer at the State Fair in around 1977 - and I was fascinated! Some of the earliest "personal computers" were kits that I saw in the electronics magazines and kit catalogs that I would read. I took my first programming class in 1980, and I have been using computers of one kind or another ever since. I bought my own first computer in 1983, and for the last 37 years I have never been without a computer. No one learns this stuff overnight - just like any other endeavor, it takes years to become proficient. The big advantage that today's kids have is that they don't have to wait until they are 18 to start learning about computers, they start as soon as they can hold their head up and look at a screen!

[doglegg]

A computer is just a gadget, just like any other human made tool. Every tool has a learning curve. If you had never seen a screwdriver, and someone asks you to hand them a Philips head screwdriver, you would look at them like they were speaking Martian. And, God forbid if you ask a video game-playing millennial to hand you an oil filter wrench. I'll wager there was a time in the distant past when none of you knew the difference between a barlow and a sod buster - but you learned because you *wanted* to learn...

I've been a science and engineering geek my entire life. When I was 5 years old I would get my Daddy's tools and take apart all my toys. When I got a little older, I learned that putting a 9 volt battery on a toy motor that normally ran on 2 AA batteries made that toy MUCH more interesting, until it started smoking...

I built crystal radio kits and other electronic projects. I learned how to solder, and I made electromagnets and DC motors from scratch. I saw my first real computer at the State Fair in around 1977 - and I was fascinated! Some of the earliest "personal computers" were kits that I saw in the electronics magazines and kit catalogs that I would read. I took my first programming class in 1980, and I have been using computers of one kind or another ever since. I bought my own first computer in 1983, and for the last 37 years I have never been without a computer. No one learns this stuff overnight - just like any other endeavor, it takes years to become proficient. The big advantage that today's kids have is that they don't have to wait until they are 18 to start learning about computers, they start as soon as they can hold their head up and look at a screen!

TFL are you still using that 1983 computer?

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

lol - no - I handed it down to a nephew sometime in the late 1980s, and I assume it was eventually put on the scrap heap. It's actually too bad, that computer would now be considered quite rare. It was one of the first IBM PC clones, called an Eagle PC 2. You can see one here: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/sys ... index.html

[kootenay joe]

I got my first computer in 2007 (still use it) so i am 24 years behind TFL.
kj