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I think it's time to share my thoughts on how I came to the gemini-capsule.
I was born in a small Siberian town in 1985 and most of you are fine
imagines the atmosphere in which adolescents grew up, whose youth fell on the 90s.
In 1991-2, my grandmother brought me a book, which they offered to buy at work.
According to my observations, this book made the future for very, very many people in
the territory of the CIS. And this is "The Encyclopedia of Professor Fortran" by A.V. Zaretsky.
I very clearly remember the moment when I was asked the question "Who do you want to be when
will you grow up? ", I remember exactly that I did not go to school then, and I answered" Geek ".
I re-read this book many, many times, while everyone dreamed of being astronauts, tankers
etc., I chose my own direction, which was not very popular at that time, because home
There were only a few computers.
When I was in the second grade, a classmate called me to visit and I saw on the table
one of the Soviet computers. It was impossible to touch him with your hands. I stood and looked at him,
listening to different stories of a classmate about how to draw and print on it.
The only computer that was available to me on weekends was the "Electronics" calculator,
which my grandmother sometimes took from work to finish the reports at home. And even that was magic.
In our time, the availability of any computing power in the palm of their hand, it is difficult for children to understand
what could fascinate a primary school student in the blinking green numbers on the "display"
calculator "Electronics".
My family was not very well off, so no one could afford to buy me
home computer, so until the second half of the 90s I was interrupted by random possibilities
to press the keyboard at work of relatives or at a party. But I started saving and buying
books on the operation of the PC. I read them and looked at poorly printed screenshots, or inserts
in the middle of books with colorful photos of laptops and PCs. I read books and tried to understand how it works
DOS.
When I was, it seems, 9-10 years old, my grandfather at work, one of the employees broke down a computer.
I no longer remember what the reason was, but I came up and asked - "Can I take a look?" Sat on a chair
and to the amazement of people around me, I fixed the error and rebooted the working system. The adults started talking
that apparently this is not just an obsession and something needs to be done.
But, as I said above, no one financially could buy a PC in the 90s, so about
96, according to an ad in the newspaper, I bought a ZX Spectrum clone (Delta-C) with a b / w monitor, and a soldered
drive interface. But all this did not matter at all, I had my OWN computer.
It's easy for me to navigate the exact years, because shortly before buying on the shelves
store has a new "Quorum-128" with two 5.25 drives. And I just stood by the window for hours
several times running to the store (which, by the way, was a couple of kilometers from home). Just running
to look at him.
It didn't bother me that the younger brother of the Quorum got to me, because they gave me a whole box in addition
cassettes with various programs and games. Games didn’t take much interest, because at this time many
there were already 16 bit game consoles and I saw more beautiful games. But try to figure it out
in BASIC attracted very much. The cherished words on the screen beckoned with secrets. I remember how the magic continued
when you entered the circle command and the computer obediently drew circles.
Many acquaintances have already transplanted to PCs bought by their parents and willingly gave away the "old muculature"
from Spectrum, so books from the series "Write your first game on BASIC" fell into the hands of.
By about 1998, my grandfather at work began to write off equipment and he was able to get for me
Dell with i486DX2 on board. I broke Windows 3.11 on the first day, and the computer stopped booting into it.
I repaired the system but only installed DOS. Then I had to get books from the shelf and sort it out.
with drivers and system files.
After a while, I managed to upgrade to Pentium I 166 with 32 RAM, which was also morally
aging iron. And that's when I first encountered GNU \ LINUX.
I stood in the store and flipped through the album covers that were on sale. Seller I'm pretty
knew well, tk. he often prompted me to solve some problems with a PC, and we communicated easily.
Turning one of the pages I saw the cover of the "Black cat Linux" CD. Ukrainian (it seems) assembly of RedHat
with normal russification.
I looked up and asked "What is this?" Although I have already met this word in newspapers and magazines.
The seller answered me "This is an operating system, like Windows 98 or OS \ 2, but different.
Of course I bought this disc.
But to my extreme discontent, my hardware conflicted with the system and the graph did not start. interface.
Several times I tried to figure out what was the matter, but I was left alone in the field, because there was no internet yet,
and people who could suggest on the case and even more so. So I put the disc in a drawer until convenient
case. And he didn't force with wait for yourself.
Once a friend approached me, saying that the computer broke down at home and did not boot, could I help?
Of course he could. I took disks with Windows and Linux at the same time. Came and installed from the first run
Linux seems to be loaded with IceWM. I showed my friend the interface, played with different programs myself
in the system and went home.
A few days later, my acquaintance's mother called me and handed the phone over to the "computer technician" whom she
invited from work to correct a misunderstanding that prevented her from working on a computer at home.
The "geek" explained to me on the phone that he could not delete the partitions that I had created on the disk.
and asked to come and fix the situation. I was in shock.
Of course I came and repartitioned the disk, after which everyone returned to their usual way of life.
But for me, life has already changed completely and irrevocably.
About further re-drinking of computer life, I’ll probably write another time, so as not to do this
post is too cumbersome!