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The Word 9
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The Word 9 (Disk 2 of 2).adf
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11-FirstComputer.txt
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11-FirstComputer.txt
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Text File
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1996-01-17
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5KB
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114 lines
|2-My First Computer
|1-Written By Rude Boy/iNDi
|1-Typed By PeX le SeX/iNDi
When I first decided to buy a computer I'd no idea of what I
really wanted, I think my interest stemmed back from a number of years
before when two blokes I worked with both had Spectrums (!) and most of
the talk was of games they'd played, glorious quests where you steered
your hero through forests and castles, finding treasures and fighting
enemies of all types, it all sounded so good but alas for beyond my
meagure wage and I stifled my burning desire to have one of these
marvellous machines.
Years later my excuse arrived with my daughter's 7th birthday,
what she needs, I told the wife is a computer as they've all got them
these days. She'll be able to do her homework on it, my wife gently
pointed out the fact that 7 year olds don't have homework, but I'd have
none of it. She needs one, I cried and I set about aquiring "the
knowledge".
Everyone I spoke to, who knew the front end from the back end of
a computer said the same thing - get an Amiga (sound advice) anyway I
learned that there was a computer club meeting each Wednesday at the
local YMCA, so on the appointed day off I trotted.
I walked into a room full of kids, tables and what I took to be
computers. Apart from brief glances nobody took any notice of me,
nobody greeted me with a welcoming smile or even a "who the **** are
you", they were all busy watching the TV screens, so I wandered around
and generally looked over a few shoulders to see what amazing things
were happening to mezmorise these people so? They were all watching the
same thing, a large grid being slowly filled with green circles?? When
the grid was filled there was a flurry of action, as they took a blue
plastic square wafer from the table, and pressed a button and off it
went again. Well I was underwhelmed - what a disappointment!! is that
it? I thought, is this all there is to it? I turned for the door and
was stopped by a large hairy man, who I shall call Les, mainly because
that's his name. Les took me under his wing (Les was a bird? - PeX)
and by commandering a lad's computer showed me what the computer could
actually do - games, demos, utilities, DPaint etc etc. I was well and
truly hooked!!
Les was an Amiga man - although out of work - he was going to
make his fortune running something called a PD library. This apparantly
involved getting a blue plastic wafer thing, called a floppy disc.
"Yes, but it isn't floppy"
"Shut up, stupid"
and copying it onto another floppy disc using a program that
fills a grid full of green circles (the penny drops) and selling it to
another computer owner for £1.60 each. When I naively pointed out that
I'd seen other libraries in magazines selling discs at £1 each I was
given a long and involved lecture on why people would buy from him, and
not these other fly-by-night PD companies who couldn't give theservice
that he could etc etc. Needless to say he very quickly went bump, but
in the meantime I bought 50 disks full of PD stuff from him, and this
was prior to me actually buying an Amiga!!!
So the great day came and before I could commit the dreaded
deed, Les rung me and warned me that Commodore had commited their own
dreaded deed and shot themselves in the foot - good and proper. They
had brought out a new machine, the 500 plus!! Word spread like wildfire
and the word was INCOMPATABILITY!! Games just wouldn't work on these
new machines, 30/40 upto 85% of existing games just wouldn't load.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth that night I can tell you.
Of course I couldn't possibly buy one of these infernal machines
as I already had the software for the 500. I must at all costs buy a
Kickstart 1.3 A500 (with a ½Meg upgrade), so off I went. Unfortunately
it was the run up to Christmas as well. No where could I find a 500,
until eventually I found a remote shop 15 miles from where I lived. I
found my desire an hour later and £333 lighter I arrived home with a box
firmly tucked under my arm.
Right, kiss the daughter goodnight and as soon as she is safely
tucked up in bed out with the box. Forget the manual, plug in the telly
and... nothing, where's the bloody picture? Get out the manual, hmmm
tune in the TV, great stuff, now what? Load in WorkBench, great, now
what? Play a game, right, take out W/B and put in a game - won't work,
click on the icon, nothing. Obviously duff game, put in another,
nothing - rant and rave, pull out hair, swear (alot), sit down, read the
manual carefully.
"Perhaps the games are self-starting, dear" says the missus,
"Listen, I'm the expert. I've been 'up the club' for weeks now" says I.
"Alright then, you know best" comes the reply.
She goes to bed, I reboot and stick in the game and of course it
works, doesn't it!!
The rest as they say (who are THEY exactly? - PeX), nights of
playing Lemmings until 3AM, and the phrase "just one mire level dear,
honest!", you all know the tale. Suffice to say that 4 years on the
daughter never uses her 500, but my 1200 with extra RAM and hard drive
gets a bashing every night!!!
End