How and when did you all get involved in Computing? It all happened for me back in 1985. At the tender age of 62, I had just retired after many years in the clothing industry. My accountant had just bought himself an AMSTRAD 1512 PC simply because, in his words “it’s even cheaper than a new typewriter and it can do all these wonderful things”. He’d phoned me up and asked me if he could arrange for it to be delivered to my address and, again in his words “you’re good at this sort of thing Ron, can you suss out how to use it and then come and teach me?” I tried it out for a week and then, realising I could never part with it, phoned him up to say I was sending him a cheque and yes, he would need to buy another one for himself. I was well and truly hooked!. I joined the local Council Evening Classes which had just started a course on computing and I started to learn the mysteries of DOS. I joined the nearest PC group (some seven miles away, in Uxbridge) and once a week for about three years I used to hump my PC to the club where we used to teach each other all the latest gimmicks. I became club Sec. and started the inevitable process of up-grading my PC, a process which has continued to this day. In 1989, at the age of 66, I did a year’s Open University on the Fundamentals of Computing and scraped through with a pass. Had to learn Pascal, which I hated. Finally, when I’m discussing computing with any of my grandchildren I always remind them that when I bought my first “serious” PC in 1987 I asked the supplier for a list of software programs I could buy to use on the machine. He gave me a single A4 sheet and said “this is it” We’ve all come a long way since then!
My first computer was purchased at an auction after I had imbibed too many alcoholic beverages (never a good idea at an auction). Since then I have become as addicted as much as most others.
I was first allowed to interact with a computer back when they had vacuum tubes. But I never had a computer of my own until about 1991. I always used some else's; first mainframes then PCs then internet. Sharp-eyed obscureists might find inter-net posting of mine from 1993.
