My Personal Computing History

The first time I ever used a computer was in first grade, sitting in the back of our classroom at the row of then-new, now-ancient Apple Macintoshes. While most of my classmates seemed enthralled by video games, I was already looking for more “productive” uses. My aunt was one of the few people my family knew with a computer and “The Internet”, so I would send her emails from the school computer. I was fascinated by the ability to send messages such long distances so quickly. I still hadn’t quite grasped the concept of The Web, but was already learning to value electronic communication.

We got our first computer when I was in about second grade. I went with my dad to browse the options at a local store. Nowadays I make all of the technology decisions in the house, but at that point I was just tagging along for fun. We ended up with a Compaq beige box, loaded with Windows 98 and Microsoft Works. With 32 MB of RAM, a 5 GB hard drive, and a 360 MHz processor, it wasn’t anything to write home about, but was enough to write emails. I didn’t really use the computer much at all for the first few years. My dad cajoled me into learning to type with JumpStart Typing for Kids, the first video game (of sorts) that I ever played. I thought it was incredibly lame, and quickly figured out that you didn’t have to type accurately to win the “free-form typing mode” challenges which let you level-up, you just had to type fast. By holding down the a key long enough, I could win every level. While the game didn’t really serve its intended purpose, I suppose it still provoked me to use some creative thinking skills.

When I got to middle school, I started to develop a real interest in computers. I quickly became the go-to person for fixing problems, and got my first taste of programming with a lego robotics class. We got our first good computer when my grandparents bought us a Dell Dimension for Christmas. Over the years I’ve upgraded it several times, but it’s still humming along as our primary home computer, and runs Windows 7 smoothly on its Pentium 4 HT. In high school, I finally got my own laptop. With my new-found freedom and the seemingly undefeatable speed of a dual-core processor and a whole gigabyte of RAM!!!, I took off exploring how to put my shiny new machine to use. Today, my desktop computer has a whopping 24 GB of RAM, four times as much as our first computer’s hard drive space, and can chew through anything I throw at it. One has to wonder where it will end. If I have kids some day, what will their first computer look like? Will it be a small device with nearly infinite resources? Or will everyone be using tablets with less physical capacity, and everything running remotely from the cloud?

The impacts of computers on Me aren’t just about Me

One of the biggest ways that computers and the internet in particular have influenced me is with the ability to collaborate with, meet, and learn from other people. I had my first experience with online forums while trying to figure out how to modify the login screen on my laptop. After getting my question figured out, I ended up sticking around and learning more about computers than I had anywhere else previously. I spent some time editing on Wikipedia, before getting tired of the intense bureaucracy there. The site I’ve been the most involved with is the Stack Exchange network. Founded as the programming site Stack Overflow, it’s now grown to encompass everything from English Language to Gardening. Stack Exchange is a Q&A platform, and addresses many of the shortcomings of traditional computer forums. I’m most involved on the computers site in the network, Super User. The system runs on a slightly addictive incentives system with “reputation points” (I’m wont to admit that I’ve got over 12000 of them now). Unlike other sites though, the points mean something – increased reputation unlocks various privileges, which allows for community moderation, from editing to closing posts to even deleting questions. Most moderation is done by regular users, although there are a handful of community moderators. In another unique twist, moderators are elected by a democratic voting system, not appointed by site admins. I was elected to be a moderator this spring, and am still actively involved on the site. In an increasingly interconnected world, it’s important to recognize the worldviews, lifestyles, and perspectives of people from other cultures. I talk with a programmer in the Netherlands. I read essays from students researching biodiesel in Brazil. I’ve made friends with a deaf diabetic from the midwest. The internet was founded on the basis of spreading knowledge and connecting the world, and I feel privileged to have taken a part in that experience.