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The obligatory BIO page. Stuff about me. I wonder if this will get long. :) My Father (now
retired) was a refrigeration and
heating engineer. He would always bring home unusable parts from things he
fixed. I loved taking things apart when I was 8 or 9 years old. Thermostats were
the most fun. When I was 11
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I was always reading my Grandfathers Popular
Mechanics magazine. One day my Grandfather brought a phone system home from the
building he worked at. He was the superintendent of the Broad and Locust
building in Philly. This phone system had a few circuit boards in it. I was fascinated
by the little thingies on it. So for my 12th birthday I asked my parents
for a radio shack 100 in 1 project kit. And I got it. The year was 1973. The 100
in one kit had a new addition. There was a micro miniature thing called an
integrated circuit chip. It was 1 inch square and it had 18 separate components
on it. Transistors, resistors, diodes, and capacitors. All very tiny but you
could still make them out because they were in a clear plastic. Who would
have thought there would be millions of those components on chips :) Well, I
doubt if I made all 100 of the projects. Some of the logic switches just didn't
seem like fun. But the radio projects and the ones that made noise or lights
were cool. Especially the LED's They were kind of new. Almost like little
Christmas lights. Anyway, I was turning into a teenager. I couldn't decide if I
wanted to become a Priest or chase girls or go to a fancy academic school. So I
transferred to a vocational school. Carpentry for the first year. Wanted to get
into electrical shop at the vo-tec center. It was booked so I took painting and
decorating only because it was right next to the electrical shop. While there I
became friends with some guys in electronics and put in my application for
senior year. Got lucky and a made it in. I was again fascinated with resistors
and transistors. And I was so into it that I completed the whole three year
course in the one year I was there. With a final grade of 97.5. Started college
within a week of graduating high school working toward an electrical engineering
degree but it wasn't teaching me the real stuff and there was also the matter of
my oldest son being born ;) so I decided to get some computer training. Yes by
this time it was 1982. I could not afford the 2000 dollars an Apple computer
cost. I could not afford a HeathKit. I could not afford the Atari 800 or even
the 400 or the Commodore VIC 20. But Mister Clive Sinclair introduced a computer
that was only 200 dollars. And by the end of 1982 the cost of the ZX81 kit was
only 99 dollars. So I had my first computer. Then Control Data Institute took my
2500.00 student loan and the extra 2500.00 dollars I got from my parents and in
9 months taught me all about mainframe computers. And a side helping of
microprocessors. 4 months after graduating I had a job as a technical specialist
with a computerized alarm company. Kastle Security systems. I did so much for my
13,200.00 dollar a year salary. Probably more than I had done till I was making
3 times that amount. It was also my first exposure to a lay off :) But 4 months
after that I started my engineering career as a field service guy. But
blah blah let me get this thread back to the electronic, video game idea. While
working at Kastle I was able to buy my first video game system. A Coleco. Sure I
didn't pay any bills that month. That was one of the few times I was able to buy
something new for many years. I bought things used. Started finding video games
at yard sales. Got hungry for color computer power and in 1985 when the 8
bit home PC's got under 200 dollars my decision to buy Atari came because it was
20 dollars less than the Commodore. So my spending was structured around getting
things cheap. My online experiences led me to the world of BBS's and more opportunities
to get things. Starting with more Atari floppy drives. And finally while most
people were still stuck with XT's I got a deal from a friend on a true blue IBM
AT. So here was my start at always trying to make the most of what I had.
Finding ways to upgrade. More RAM. Adding a 40 MB hard drive to the already
existing 20MB one. And them buying parts from old IBM PC's to put together a
second computer. Finding out how to get the ram above 256k. And how to max it
out at 640k instead of 512k. This trend continues to this day. Anything I own
that can possibly be upgraded I have upgraded.