Kevin Kinsey wrote:
christopher floess wrote:
All in exchange for taking someones "trash".
Indeed, you can run a piece of junk computer on FreeBSD
and do things Windows never could ... well, I shouldn't
say never, but it can't now, unless you're still willing
to install 3.1 from floppy or Win95 from the 14th-generation
CD-R copy of your original from 14 years ago.
I wasn't around for those days... Heh, I have a fairly pristine copy of
Windows 95 and two copies of Windows 98. They're in good condition
because when I got my VERY first computer, my Mom bought it from my
Uncle, it was running Windows 95, had I think a 133 MHz CPU, and like 32
MBs RAM, but I'm not even sure... This was September of 1999.
I know the month and year I got my first Computer, because I had started
using it, got hooked on the idea of a machine I controlled, and two
weeks after getting it, without manuals to read, without help, I started
screwing with it until I figured it out.
Some people who know me think and say "How is it you can fix any
computer no matter what it's running, without a manual, without
classes... And you seem to understand how your fix worked?" and it's
because the night I started, I still remember opening Microsoft Word,
sitting there for two hours screwing with buttons on it, and then
figuring out "OK, I highlight the text, and THEN press that "B" and then
it's in Bold.. Ahh OK!" And then going from there. The next night I
started messing with Explorer, and saw all the files and so on, and got
how to move files around. I was lucky enough not to try system files. I
just used dummy files.
A week later, I was done with everything in the start menu except this
"weird little box called MS-DOS prompt" which didn't seem to have many
buttons, and typing stuff didn't help because it just said bad something
or other"... Yea lol I know, dumb. Hadn't ever seen a command line
before so cut me SOME slack though ;) You have to understand that before
this, I had not ever touched any computer except for an AppleII for 5
minutes at school when I was like 4. So I literally had only touchbed a
computer for 5 minutes before this and it was an Apple II I knew nothing
about.
On week two, I had learned what online meant, and "accidentally" watched
my Uncle type in his Prodigy password to go online.
He left for a week and I had un-restricted access. I still thought
"Restart your computer" meant restarting it from scratch and I'd lose
all programs, so I always shut it down and turned it back on after an
installation, which I figured out myself too. So I wasn't by any means
good at it.
I saw the Prodigy home page and got online for the first time one
afternoon, and thought "Wow.... This thing has neat pictures of Pamela
Anderson" lol... Hey, I'm a German American and damn proud of that, we
like nudity right? lol. And for a 17 year old punk rocker this was a new
experience and I loved it.
On week two of having a computer, I signed up for an account on Bolt.com
and started learning what a social networking site did, and since they
always said "this person joined on this date" that's how I knew when I
got a computer; I had memorized it. So, I've had a computer since
September of 1999, and within 6 months, I screwed up the machine bad by
opening something by accident.
See, within a few months, I learned what Computer Security meant. The
idea someone could control a computer from somewhere else, grabbed me
hard.I LOVED the idea of security in computers. I started slow by seeing
what those weird DoS tools were, and thought "OK, annoying, but the idea
is interesting" and then I started a virus collection because I didn't
collect baseball cards and every boy needs a hobby ;)
That would seal the fate of that PC. A friend I had met who was into
this stuff too, said he found some great ones for my collection, and I
grabbed a floppy disk to store them on, and he was like "by the way, one
of these isn't Zipped, be careful" and I'm like "OK man"....
I was a little side tracked by porn at the moment, and when I went to
close a Window that had all my new viruses on it, I for some reason
Double Clicked on the one he warned me about....
OK, just for the record, I was just collecting these. I wasn't infecting
a Company or something, I just thought the idea of them was kind of
neat, so I collected them. Just making sure no one thinks I was one of
"those" kids.
Now, this thing turned out not to be a virus at all. Instead, it turned
into the ONLY ONLY ONLY .exe I've EVER come across that does PHYSICAL
damage to a machine.... I'm in no way kidding.
I saw what I had done fast.... I had went to close the window and
accidentally double clicked on it instead and instantly hit for the
power switch to shut the machine off.... It was to late though. I saw a
DOS Prompt come up saying something or other, and when I turned the
machine back on, it wouldn't even boot.
This machine ran Windows 95, had a lot of MP3s, and some movies and
pics. When that happened, I couldn't even get Windows 3.1 to install.
A friend and I worked on it all the time, and I was shocked. I couldn't
do anything.... I managed to install PC-DOS on this thing, and then when
I tried to install Windows 3.1, it said the drive wasn't big enough!
I the next day, went and bought my first paidfor computer, and used it
insted which I still have, but the fact that later in life when I
started using Linux, about a year later, I tried again to install Linux
on the drive that thing killed.
Linux wouldn't install either, it said the drive was screwed up and
couldn't even fix it except for a small DOS partition which was like, a
few MBs.
I remember shutting the power off before it finished running, but it was
FAST, and this thing actually killed somehow a portion of a disk drive,
and had it run all the way probably wouldn't have allowed DOS either.
Fdisk couldn't even work on it. I was literally shocked.
9 years later, I can still remember it, and I STILL have the floppy disk
I copied all that stuff too he sent me that night. And yea, I STILL have
that executable that destroyed my first PC lol. I didn't know about
hardware at the time so the fact that a new drive would have been a
better fix didn't cross my mind until it was too late and I had given
the thing to a friend's Dad.
To this day I don't know what's on that thing, and yes, I've popped the
floppy in since then to look, and saw all those olden days of my later
teen years sitting there... And the thing that ripped up the disk drive,
which I've now zipped up and made a tarball just in case lol.
I still have it, and friends have asked for a copy, and haven't ever
figured it out either how it did all that.
Oh, and games. It's like heroin. Don't start, or
your life gets sucked into the monitor ;-)
Thanks, Java, for six months of wasted life over the last
5 years.
Java isn't Heroin, it's Crack ;)
Kevin Kinsey
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