I’m going to be bespectacled and have been advised to reduce and limit my computer usage considerably. A bit of nostalgia set in on hearing this and I thought about my short journey so far in this wonderland of solid-state and otherwise.
**First time I touched a computer. 1989, at school in 2nd standard
**First command I typed on a computer. “dir”, 1990, 3rd standard
**First game I played on a computer. “bricks”, 1991, 4th standard
First Colored game I played on a computer. “Dangerous Dave”, 1991, 4th standard
First program I wrote on a computer. “Hello, Ankit!” in basic, 1992, 5th standard(The pre-teenage rebel in me substituted the “world” by “Ankit”. Why “Ankit”? That’s a mystery ;-) )
First time I held a mouse. 1992, 5th standard, Windows 3.0
First Windows Program I used PaintBrush (MSPaint today), 1992, 5th standard
First “3d” game I played Wolfenstein 3D (or Wolf), 1993, 6th standard
**First hack **> “Remote controlling” friend’s school PC by swapping the mouse cords, 1993, 6th standard
First movie I watched on a computer
“The wonderful world of Plants” or something similar, 1993, 6th standard
First introduction to the internet
1994, 7th standard, A demo by an ISP to the whole school.
**First site I opened on the internet **> disneyland.com, 1994, 7th standard
First commercial movie I watched on a computer
“Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, 1995, 8th standard
**First introduction to Linux **> Suse 4.x, 1996, 9th standard
First self-taught language learnt
HTML, 1997, 10th standard
First Computer at home
Celeron 466 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 8GB HDD, for around 60k, 1998, 11th standard
First C program
“Hello, Shantanu!”, 1998, 11th standard (Now, do you get it?)
**First net connection at home **> 1998, 11th standard, ISP:Glide dial up. around 250 bucks for 5 hours at 56 kbps + telephone usage charges.
**First Quake III Arena game **> 2000, almost at the end of 12th standard
First major gaming session
2000, QIII Arena, 11 hours straight, Tier1-Tier5, 2 days before my CET exam (Entrance test for my engineering college). For the record, I was so obsessed with QIII back then that I even had a quicky 5-minute game (DM17 map) in the 45 minute break I got during the exam as my home was quite near the exam center.
First “real” hack
2001, B.E., First year. Wrote and installed a TSR onto a friend’s system to print out “U R Doomed” whenever he typed something.
First Linux self-install
Red Hat 7.0, 2001, B.E., First year
**Longest Gaming Session till date **> December 2001, B.E., 2nd year. Deus Ex, 26 hours with 4-5 breaks spanning from 2-15 minutes max. Finished with all the alternate endings.
First major Q3 Arena lan-tournament
Early 2002, B.E. 2nd year. At NSIT Innovision tech fest.
First Blog
http://iamhuman.blogspot.com, 2004, B.E., Final year
**First program in the corporate world **> Optimization and multi-channelization of H.264 stitching, 2004
First real project in the corporate world
Epsilon, the new low cost BTS (Base Transceiver Station) by Nokia, 2004
First Laptop
2005, Compaq Presario R4025, AMD64 2.0 GHz, 1GB RAM, 128 MB gfx Card. US$1300
First Windows Mobile Program
ShantzTodayChanger, 2007
**Finally bought first domain name **>http://shantanugoel.com, 2008
These “firsts” aren’t anything big in themeselves but have been an important part of my life in one or the other way making my love for computers growing at an even faster pace. So what are your nostalgic moments with your beloved machine?