Life of a technologist.

Is it any wonder I work in the field that I do. I had a little dig around to find those bits of technology I used to own and those which I own now.

Starting from the start, my first bit of technology was a "“TV game machine"” which had 10 games built into it. I raised the money through confirmation presents/birthday money and a secret account mum was putting her child endowment money into. If I recall it right, the machine cost about $70 in 1978. It was basically the game of Pong with 9 other variations. Soccer, Hockey, Gridiron, Doubles, Tennis, Squash and a few others I can'’t remember. This is what it looked like:

After a couple of years, in 1980 I think, auntienty bought us a surprise gift for Christmas. An Atari 2600 game console. This was the greatest gift a kids could have at the time. Space invaders was huge, other games were breaking into the pinball market and the 2600 allowed you to play colour games right there at home. Over the next couple of years we amassed about 15 games. God I wish we still had the unit and games now. I'’m sure it'’s worth a few hundred dollars to a collector, that market has exploded recently. This is the unit we used to have:

Plus over that time, I managed to collect a couple of these games.

In 1982, my dad decided I needed a computer of my own. I had studied basic programming in 1981 (year 11) and was also doing computers in year 12. I researched and decided on the best thing I could come up with, a Disk Smith System 80.

This was just a basic programming system with about 16k of memory. This thing helped me learn some programming concepts etc, but as with all technology, soon was outdated. IBM and Microsoft were starting the conspiracies which lead to today'’s machines and operating systems. The system 80 though lasted about 2 years, I could record my programs onto a cassette tape with a flaky cable between the unit and the cassette recorder. I remember that the cable had to be titled slightly so that it would work; the programs would take about 20 minutes to load so if it stuffed up, and it usually did, I'’d be sitting there for hours waiting. I wrote my own Bathurst car racing game on that thing, something else I regret throwing out.

Uni followed and in my final year, 1986, dad bought a computer for his company. This was a semi leading edge Epson PC (yep Epson made computers in those days). These were the days when computer were made by manufacturers and they all fought for the brand name end of the market.

This set up cost dad about $3000, I learnt a valuable lesson that day. Any future computer purchase was going to cost $3000.

A few years after this, dad upgraded to an Epson 286. This was the next generation PC and was sold to us by a former workmate. It was a solid unit and had a whopping 1 meg of ram. This thing lasted about 3 years and served me well. Did a lot of my dad'’s accounts on it as well as mastering Kings Quest games, Leisure Suit Larry and countless other bits of software that came across my work desk. This unit also cost about $3000 in about 1989.

The next computer was a no name cream box, supplied by a workmate. It was a 386 with 4 meg of memory and a 300 meg hard disk. It cost about, you guessed it, $3000. This was my first official purchase in 1993. I used this computer to connect to bulletin boards, and later, make the first steps onto the internet. It'’s now sitting at my mum'’s place, gathering dust. No photo of it as it was just a regular cream box. The monitor was a 15 inch VGA monitor and was about $1000 by itself. You buy them now for under $100, if anyone is actually selling them.

The beauty of that machine was that I wrote a stock management program for a stock broker and he paid me $400 for the effort. What did I spend that money on? Well, I rushed out and bought a Playstation (original) in about 1998? I think.

I still have this, and I even had it chipped. I must have about 40 games for this thing. I used to play it constantly. Favourite games were Gran Turismo 1 and 2, The Army men games, Actua Golf and tons of others.

The next PC I bought in 2002 was a quantum leap from the last one. It'’s my current machine, an AMD 1.6 GHz machine with 512 meg ram and lots of other bells and whistles. ADSL connection to the net, a router to connect the kid'’s computer to the net and run a little local area network around the house. My favourite game for this PC has been Far Cry, very realistic and very spooky with the surround sound on and in a dark room. Especially when the kids wake up and sneak in behind me.

Over the past 3 years, we'’ve also acquired the following game boxes.

Nintendo Game Boy.

Playstation 2 with a network card for on-line play.

Microsoft XBOX -– Halo collectors edition, also with network card.

Nintendo Game Cube for the kids.

Plus, an impulse purchase of a Playstation 2 bean bag.

So, is it any wonder that my work life revolves around the humble computer? I'’ve been in the industry for 18 years, I'’ve seen a lot of technology come and go, I recall the Apple Newton which was going to be the next big thing. I'’ve resisted the urge to splurge on an iPod of any description. I like my music, but these toys don'’t interest me. I don'’t use public transport much at all which would be the only time I would want to get lost in a musical world.

You'’ll notice I'’ve steered clear of Apple gear all together, they were never seen as a real techo’s PC. One for the schools or publishers, techo's want to strip things apart and break them; you couldn'’t do that with the Apples, also objected to paying $6000 for a PC. They eventually got it and brought out the iMac, and they finally are becoming price competitive, but still donÂ’t interest me.

PS: The geekiest guy I know has glued used CD's to the ceiling of one of the rooms in his house. Last I heard, he was starting on the walls, this was "his" room. Somehow he negotiated this with his wife, that must have been one hell of a discussion.