Computers… Computers… I’m Bored!

I’ve written the title of this section an hour ago and just started to write the main section just now… I’m really bored, I somewhat been losing my interest with the computers as I can’t think of anything else to do with it… Everything seems to be just the same to me nowadays… Ahhh!!!… Oh’ well, might as well revisit my old past memories of the very first time I had my encounter with the computers...

My First Computer

The very first computer I had was this Atari 400 model??? Err… Can’t remember the exact model name as it’s back home and I kinda had this during the early 80’s, I just had to update this when I visit back home… It really is only a keyboard with cartridge on top of it for the game cartridge to be inserted like the “Pac-Man” and “River Raid” game. It’s much like those playstation or xbox which you just attached to your television set and play except for its keyboard and this cassette player that you attached to it, this cassette is acting as its floppy, where you can record your data, you just had to remember the counter number where you record the data in the cassette, much like what we used for some old server to back up data called tape drive…. This Atari kinda introduced me to the world of computer programming as there’s some programming manual including with it like “Introduction to Basic”, “Introduction to Graphics” and “Introduction to Sounds”. Man, how very happy I am just to see how I could plot the screen just by following the manual ^_^; I could draw some stick man on the screen using this language, and then I could add some sounds to it afterwards… ok… ok… I think I better move on to the next one ^_^

286

The next one I had for a computer was this 286 that my mom bought from the office, with this two 3.5 floppy inch disk drive that was attached to it… and you can’t use it without first booting it with DOS… My friends and I used to brag at each other when one of us had a higher version of dos, or one of us had this 1.44m 3.5 inch disk drive. Or later if the computer had a hard disk ^_^, and much later on if it had this windows 3.1 installed to it hehe… We used to play a lot of dos game back then especially this dos version of the NBA basketball game (I forgot the name) and we would attach the pc speaker to this component of my friend though its sounds are only Toink! Toink! Toink! ^_^ But we are really happy that it’s loud and much deeper than without it hehe… And while playing we would do a bet on something while playing this basketball game in the pc, I think someone bet his precious comics collection to Ronald and lost… Was the name of this someone happens to be BJ ALLEN ZAMORA??? LOL, reminds me of something… not related to this though… I think he also lost his playstation to Ronald? Yah! I know this one but I kinda forgotten too how that playstation ended up in my hands, I get to finished the Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 series on that one ^_^; Well, I don’t have it now! If you want it back… I think Ron sold it already a couple of years back hahaha!!! Now, to this 286… Back then, your computer is really a hot rod if you had this green monitor attached to it and later on the colored monitor… some of the few games back then worth mentioning are, which I think are really cool… This Rouge Game, err.. If I remember correctly this game monster is only identified as just being a character, yup… No fancy graphics… where “@” would equal to something like a really strong monster? That would be really scary back then ehehe… Anyway… The Magic Candle Series and this Prince of Persia… I really got hooked to playing those two games especially the Prince of Persia… I even did cracked that program so I would be able to play it as Neil kinda messed up the original copy we had, good thing he had this hard disk copy but the program is still messed up so I had to do something for it to be playable again… I forgot how I was able to fixed it again, I thought those crazy characters are normal back then when I edited them ^_^; How I would play for the whole day with that game and finishing it a couple of times… err… How many times had I finished the game in one day? Beating my best time, last I remember was more or less than 9 minutes… just a continued running and beating the opponent and jumping and finally killing the Vizier in the last stage (He’s the one right, right?) and saving the princess… never really stopping as much as possible… on when you had to draw your sword to fight Or… until my mom would slapped my head cause I wouldn’t answer her hehehe… Ah’ there’s also this cool horoscope program called “Fortune Teller”, but eventually its date doesn’t support the year 2000 ^_^; Y2K? I’ve kinda checked and downloaded this program somewhere off the net a couple of years back, that’s why I know…

Windows, Modem, BBS and Yes… The Internet…

No, computers still doesn’t interest me back then… Not until I had this computer which is Pentium 166mhz with some kind of Video Card and an ALS 100 sound card attached to it and with it is this awesome new Operating System called Windows 95 ^_^; I think it’s called a multimedia computers back then… costing a lot during those times… oh’ there’s also this card called Multimedia card for playing all those video cd? I think that’s why they called it multimedia :P My friend would usually be awed when they would see that I kinda had two video cards attached to my computer when looking at the back casing of my computer… or so they thought… anyway…

I think I was a bit lazy and bored in my room one night when this shorty friend of mine (NEIL!!! HEY!!! :P) suddenly came to visit me with something in his hands… and he gave me this black colored thing and told me to attach it to my computer… This thing is a 28.8kbps Rockwell modem… sweet! Well, that was really sweet and fast back then hehehe ^_^;

To continue… He sat and tinker a bit with my computer setting, I think he did go to the network connection/settings and created a dial up connection ^_^ … I’d forgotten that scenario but to make it short… He somewhat had hacked an account at some Internet Service Provider, is it ok to tell that ISP Name here? Err… I better just leave it be ‘cause I think they just change their company name besides… I still had this nightmare about something which really scared me, It seems so very real hehehe… but it kinda always reminded of The Terminator movie ^_^… And so, we where able to browse the Internet for free… but it kinda not interest me at that moment… and Igor is really the one who introduced me and had my first experience of the internet (why you always had to be included in my blog? hehehe). ‘Cause he’s the one who really had this first legal account back then… He’s the first one to have an internet account and the net was really not that really in a boom yet, right? Right? He and I (Igor) would usually surf the net at their house for some something and anything that would interest me but usually we kinda always ends up in some gore gallery and with that we would lost our appetite to eat hehehe… Anyway, this is the really fun stuffed for me back then… He told me about the Bulletin Board System (BBS) thing and gave me a couple of numbers to dial using the terminal… War Dialing was it still being used today? Nope, I don’t know that… I just read it somewhere… so, where was I? I was finally able to hook up at this Toyota Motor Company branch which is located near our place, I was kinda a regular client there… I mean that I would usually connect at their Wild Cats BBS and download some of Alicia Silverstone pic ^_^; I think my ratio in upload/download would be 0/10 a day err… more or else hehehe… Well, I also would play this game called Legend of the Red Dragon everytime I would connect to that BBS… It’s really a cool game… BBS is really cool for me up till now… though I haven’t tried connecting to one again…

Anyway… When you are connecting to a BBS… it’s much like the net except it’s really just a text based thing and your time is limited to… uhm… depending on how the SysOp configure their system… 30 minutes seems to be normal… and you could mail other users of that system, post a bulletin, download files, upload, Ah’ before I forgot, might as well say this now… This Legend of the Red Dragon game is really cool as you get to have sex with the other user hahaha… uhm… that’s only between the users game character… well, It could really boost up your experience in the game if the one you asked for accepted your offer… well, you wouldn’t know the answer until the next time you connect, usually that would be the next night as your time really runs out in one connection… Whether that person accepted or rejected you… It’s quite nice when you found out she accepted your request too… uhm… I’m just wondering if there is some female back then that would be into the BBS thing… YIKES!!! Lots of the people I’ve talk to was of the same sex… Man, I don’t know why they would want to talk to me… some would call me during the day and talk about something which I’m bored I remember that even one of the caller, we even get to talk about Kris Aquino ^_^… I gets call ‘cause I also used to be a SysOp, same with Igor… We kinda had our own BBS back then, It’s kinda been a hobby of ours back then… Mine was named “Theatre Des Vampires” yes, after Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles… and Igor’s “Vampires Lair”??? Right? Right? You might want to search the listing of the BBS in the Philippines as I think someone is still maintaining the list… err… The last time I checked, we are still on the list though it’s been long since we operated again… ^_^

We would usually hear each other modem screaming at some late hours of the night ‘cause we usually only turned on the system from 12 midnight till 5am. Some or most of the time… We would connect to each other and annoy each other for a chat with the SysOp… Till he or I would answer… err… just so we could ask each other for a stick of cigarette ^_^; I think I’m the one who usually runs out of stick during the night… and we would meet outside and back in after a couple cigar hehehe… There’s this one time… one of my user called me and are really angry at me ‘cause… err… ‘Cause of the files he downloaded from my system… nope, he didn’t get a virus… but ‘cause of all these pictures he download the other night… It’s all those gory pictures that Igor and I would usually surfed over the web hahaha… I think it really scared the shit out of him… young kid… I think he was looking for something but instead download the other pictures… Well, I found out later when I checked my file area that it was all of Igor’s uploaded pictures with a very well decent and nice comments in each of the pictures files… like “Wow, Legs” when in fact it really is a picture of a bloody cutted female legs or “Awesome Breast” err.. I think you get the picture… no wonder the kid so angry with me LOL ^_^;

I finally was able to be interested somewhere along the way and stop being a SysOp of my BBS and just totally be addicted to the Internet… like chatting at some IRC room… I’d rather prefer the IRC over the YM’ when chatting… yeah right! ^_^; Almost everyone of us from that generation and including my friends started from IRC when chatting… We would usually hang out at some channel that this friend of ours created… err… that would be Neil… He’s also the one who would always be organizing an EB party… Where most of the time we ended up sleeping in his room and Ronald would be vomiting in his favorite boots hahaha… We usually would party at Neil’s house especially when his parents would be going somewhere far away and would be gone for days… We are like the rats of their house, when the cats are away… We party! Anyway… Back to the IRC thing… We would usually talk and chat for awhile including those who are already in the states… then suddenly one of us would be knocked off the channel… How you do that guys? I asked this ‘cause it’s not really a normal boot off and not the Ops… ^_^; It’s annoying how you can’t return at once back to the chat room ‘cause your ghost still roam in there… Still now, I’m still curious about that one… And I can’t forget how Neil would ask one of us, begging us to tell him who erased his entire drive online… I would say… IT’S IGOR!!! Points my finger at him, I suspect he’s also the one booting me off of yahoo messenger, It only happens when he’s online… Something weird would usually happens with my connection once he’s online… I feel like I’m sort of a test bunny for his experimentation… What’s it called? Well, maybe it’s just a thing of my mind hehe ^_^; No wonder everyone are invisible now at YM even though they are online… So, boring… Or is it just my time of going online? ^_^

Well, after all these years, lots have change with the computers but the things you do are somewhat just the same with a different looks and how you do things, but at the end of it all… It is just the same… that is just for me off course. I envy those who are new to the computers as it seems so much fun to them being in front of one, especially watching some of my little niece’s and nephew’s fights over who would be the one to first break my computer (literally). And my computer never look and feel the same way it used to be once they finished err… let’s also include my room on that one. ^_^;

I think I better see Neil again when I get home…Maybe he would be the one to show me something that would interest me again to enjoy being in front of the computer… And makes me blow up my motherboard again, yeah we kinda did that some years back to one of my old computer ‘cause we kinda over and over and over clocked my processor… well, that won’t be necessary nowadays, ne? I’d like to see him ‘cause he’s really the one who like to social eng… err… I mean socialize ^_^; and I’m kinda wondering what are you up to now? By the way… Neil, I kinda added you and erased you intentionally after a couple of days at my friends list ‘cause I kinda hate and don’t like the default picture you had posted in your profile… I don’t trust the face of that picture, with all the wide smile ^_^ besides, I don’t like your sudden invitation, smells like a fish hahaha… Sorry about that… And I already had an account somewhere, so… No need to invite me, I’ll just look for you when I get home! ^_^