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And don't get me started on JCL! JCL!!!!! I changed majors over that crap!!!!!!

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I can see this turning into Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen ("We never 'ad a shell! We 'ad t' program in machine code by openin' th' machine and pullin' out the proper transistors!" "Transistors? Luxury! We 'ad t' do it with valves!") but let's try to forestall that...

I am far from being a true ubergeek. I'm just your average everyday geek - computer guru to family and friends, but with several gurus of my own that I turn to. I'll try to list my entire computer experience... (note that the dates are hazy and some of them may be out by a year or two)

Early 80s - Occasional access to friends' and relatives Atari 2600s. I know, a console, but I think it's relevant. :)

1984 - Extensively used a friend's Commodore 64. We complete Impossible Mission together! He was also learning to use a program which I think was called CMOS, a precursor to AMOS on the Amiga.

1986 - Learned BASIC for the first time on BBCs. Got fairly good with it. My final assignment was an Infocom-style text adventure, though I managed to get graphics and music out of the thing. My opus was a program that recreated the trademark 007 opening - music, gun barrel, Bond, gunshot, blood...

1987 - Spent many hours making music and playing games with the Apple IIe and MIDI setup in the music room at school. My Doctor Who theme was a masterpiece... :)

1988 - A friend who had owned both an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64 got an Amiga. BASTARD! Discovered that the Amiga version of Populous has the scariest soundtrack of any game in existence. I don't think anything has yet topped it, for me. This is the same guy who got CMOS, so he of course went and got AMOS as well. That was my first experience with the terms "pixel", "sprite", and the now defunct Amiga-only "bob" ("blitter object"). Ah, that glorious blitter chip...

1990 - We got an Amiga of our own, though we came awfully close to getting an Atari 1040 ST. An Amiga-loving guru whose judgement Dad trusted changed his mind. Thank God...

1992 - Went to university for the first time, and encountered VAX/VMS, Macintosh, and the dreaded *dramatic chord* IBM-PC running MS-DOS and Windows 3. Since I had to program in PASCAL on the PCs, I learned to hate them. However, I made a few friends that had IBM-PCs of their own (Osbornes, remember them?) and discovered the joys of Minesweeper and Solitaire.

...and from then on it has been PCs, DOS, and Windows all the way.

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It's always nice to meet a fellow Amigan.

I'm a geek in the sense that I wear glasses and don't have any friends, but I'm not particularly well-versed in technological matters. I'm reasonably fluent in BASIC, C and C++, but these days, who isn't?

I only have basic knowledge of C and C++ (no pun intended) and since I haven't touched either in over a year, my few skills are fading quickly. BASIC is the program that I first learned on and used for many years, so I don't think I will ever fully lose it.

Incidentally, I didn't find out until very recently that "Amiga" roughly means "girlfriend" - Spanish amigo: "friend". Feminine of amigo: amiga. I find that strangely depressing...

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...doesn't this now belong in the IAACG thread, now that the "g" word has been uttered?

My grandmother had an old Atari 2600 that I was addicted to, as a console. My family had an old Texas Instruments somethign or other. It was both a console and a computer. Pretty nifty really. Had a tape drive and I made stupid Basic programs on it. Also had QBert on cassette tape that my dad pirated from a guy he worked with. My first experience in software piracy at such an early age. My family woudl sit down together and play soem game called Treasure Island or something. It was a totally text based adventure game that I remember being so hard, but I found a version of it online a year ago and beat it in about an hour and a half. "You are in a flat in London...."

My family then got an Apple II GS (this was the big apple "graphics" computer that was killed off in it's prime by the Macintosh). My favorite game on that was King's Quest 3. That wizard freaked me the hell out! But I turned that bastard into a cat. Did more stupid Basic programming.

Then we finally moved into the world of PCs. I think I'm going to try to find that odl TI though. I wonder if my dad threw it out or not.

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"Fascist Clay was my most favorite totalitarian boxer!" - Indie Rock Pete from Diesel Sweeties

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I survived it and actually got paid to do JCL (and COBOL) for a year and a half

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King's Quest 3 was the first game I ever bought. The wizard was really scary -- you never knew when he'd show up. And I thought the spells were really cool. I remember having to call the Sierra hint line because I was stuck for month or so.

It sounds like my old TI-99/4a, for which I had only one cartridge, which was a demo of a Home Budget program. I used to type up huge Basic programs and then have to erase them after leaving it on for days and showing everyone I knew, because I didn't have any blank tapes.

A couple of years ago I came across an emulator for the TI-99/4a and had a little nostalgia trip. I had this as my Windows startup screen for a little while:

But then the nostalgia wore off and I realized it was really ugly.

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www.bradsucks.net

TI 99-4A.

I actually remembered that.

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What others say about boorite!

Yes!! TI-99/4a!!! That thing was awesome. We also had a game called Parsec that ruled. I kicked ass at that game and constantly beat my brother unitl he didn't want to play anymore.

I totally have to see if my dad still has that thing somewhere.

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"Fascist Clay was my most favorite totalitarian boxer!" - Indie Rock Pete from Diesel Sweeties

I gave away my Atari 400 almost ten years ago.

It was about 10 years old at the time.

wow...

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What others say about boorite!

If I had a way to put anything online, I probably would get the ol 400 out and hope it still works, but I can't. I'm still regretting that, since it means I can't post screenshots from when I made Gabe, Spanks and Dr Pedantic into pro wrestlers.

And yet again, not having a real computer bites me in the ass.

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"Only things I approve of should exist." -some guy on the internet

Actually, I think that was wirthling.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

Jeff K says "Lunix is a beetar operateing system"

http://www.somethingawful.com/features/usarfreindley/index.htm

is it just me who has a black brad now?

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Who knows what fear lurks in the hearts of men? MIKE BOBSICO KNOWS! And if you give him a decent tip when he delivers your mail , he might tell you.

Nope, not just you. Brad has lost that healthy, blushing glow he once had...

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It took me a pretty odd minute to figure out what you meant by that.

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www.bradsucks.net

I have no idea what you're talking about.

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Dad was flammable

Everything's back to normal, then.

So now you are doing Neil Diamond impersonations?

You've been thwacked about the head about this one... but I think it needs doing again *THWACK*

This is your summary of DexX's arguement. I like how you know that he has only had ONE bad experience, and your conclusion that this is why he hates them. On the thread DexX has listed his computer experience, so I don't have to go into it here.

Auto-Backup is supposed to auto-save your file every 10 - 15 mintues, depending on the interveral you select in the options menu. Given that James had been working for several hours, the function should have worked.

But DexX did know how to do it, and he searched and searched and found nothing, which means it failed.

I have a very protective wife. :)

Yeah, I ended up doing a file search for every file that had been modified that day, and then sorting them by time of modification. Four of them were Word files, but they were only template files and our Outlook .sig file (it has three separate versions - .txt, .rtf. and .doc). It was definitely, absolutely, positively not there.

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Dad was flammable

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“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1945)

*applause*

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