6 ms·

I was this kid in my day. I had an extremely high-end PC that I built myself (to date myself, it cost well over $6,000[0] and was a home-built 486DX50 (right w

by mdip 3y ago

I was this kid in my day. I had an extremely high-end PC that I built myself (to date myself, it cost well over $6,000[0] and was a home-built 486DX50 (right when they came out) maxed out motherboard RAM (that might have been 16MB but memory escapes me), a Turtle Beach Wave Table Synth sound card, a video card capable of powering a display at 1152x1024 on a 16" CRT display. I ran a multi-node BBS on two 9600, then 16.8K modems. Had it not been for the experience of "tinkering" with that PC and its predecessor (a ten year old 8088), I would likely have never become a software developer. I had the honor of building a gaming PC for a neighbor kid and watched over four years as he (unbeknownst to him) became a very competent geek. A few years of tweaking settings in games to eek out a higher frame-rate, fighting with firmware updates, video card drivers, software updates and every other bit of mayhem that the words "I want to game on my PC" evoke, and you pick up a wealth of knowledge "by accident". I hadn't talked to the kid in four years; met up with him, again, recently and I was blown away. First thing he does is pull a "Flipper Zero" out of his pocket and tells me about all of the crazy things he's done with it. He is as capable as any systems guy I've ever talked to. He has no clue that he has this skill, either. It was such a good experience that I opted to buy my son a decent gaming laptop to graduate him from consoles. Over the last year, the same thing has happened to him. This year, my daughter (she's two years younger) begged me to build her a desktop, so she's getting a really nice Christmas followed by a year of learning/frustration. :) Oh, and the fam got a Flipper Zero this year, too. Can't have the neighbor kid have all the fun. [0] I saved up the money to afford it by building computers for other people.

fatnoah 3y ago
> Had it not been for the experience of "tinkering" with that PC and its predecessor (a ten year old 8088), I would likely have never become a software developer. Now that I'm 25 years into my software career, one thing that absolutely blows me away is just how few software engineers in my teams actually own their own computers. It's less than 50% for my current team. Meanwhile, I'm the weirdo with several (gaming PC, gaming laptop PC, and general purpose MBP) in addition to my work laptop. > It was such a good experience that I opted to buy my son a decent gaming laptop to graduate him from consoles. Over the last year, the same thing has happened to him I went through that experience with my son as well. He's never shown great interest in being taught computer stuff, but did want to help with a PC build. Now, he's tech support for his friends.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  The trend of people not even owning a laptop is fascinating. Smartphones are amazing devices, but how do people do that?!
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    Can't speak for OP, but we have a lot of people who request MacBooks at work and just do their personal activity on it. Saves them the $2k for the device and they don't have to concern themselves with it being lost, damaged or stolen. This does lead to what can only be described as an acrimonious custody battle whenever we do layoffs. High rates of "lost" equipment returns led to us ransomwaring the things to hold their unsynced personal data hostage until they return the equipment.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      > High rates of "lost" equipment returns led to us ransomwaring the things to hold their unsynced personal data hostage until they return the equipment. Is that really worth it to get back what I would assume is on average a 3 year old laptop? Do you then re-issue this old, used gear to your new hires? That aside, using your work equipment for personal stuff (or vice-versa) is just a really dumb idea.
      - fwmcbumcrumble 3y ago
        > Is that really worth it to get back what I would assume is on average a 3 year old laptop? Do you then re-issue this old, used gear to your new hires? It depends on the device. A 3 year old M1 MBP is virtually identical to an almost brand new M2 MBP. There's no need to chuck an M1 MBP in the trash (metaphorically and literally) just because it's "3 years old". Now if it's a 3 year old low end Intel machine then I'd be more than happy if it went away.
      - jstarfish 3y ago
        It's less about the hardware itself and more about recovering/accounting for the data on it. If we can attest that no IP left with them and the device is out of its service life, sometimes we'll let them keep it out of pity. Ironically the most frequent justification is recognizance that they don't own a computer and can't easily look for another job.
kkielhofner 3y ago
I have a similar story as many on HN do. I had been stringing 10BASE2 coax around my "home lab" for years before I realized people will actually pay me to play with my toys. Of course I then sunk all of that money into more toys for the home lab. I now have a lot of friends with kids and some of them are teenagers. I've had some concern in my mind for a while now - their total knowledge of tech comes down to asking for a wifi password and watching prank videos (or whatever) on an app. When you ask them what they want to do when they grow up they say "influencer"... The most technical thing they know how to do is reboot "the router" when the internet is down. The second diagnostic step is to yell that the internet is down. They're great kids and I'm not criticizing them but I've had some concerns that there might not be anyone around to keep the lights on when our generation is gone. In our day using a computer and getting on the internet had huge barriers to entry but that came with the benefit of an explosion in tech talent. My point is it's great to hear there are still some nerdy kids out there getting under the covers!
- riwsky 3y ago
  Is this not how the generation before us felt about our inability to repair our cars and radios?
- mdip 3y ago
  That's funny -- when my familiy was planning to move to a home that was being built, my Dad got out there before they put the drywall up and ran telephone and cable television to every bedroom. I followed in behind him with my punch down tool and put a shiny, new Ethernet port in every room, too. This was 1993. There was no broadband. We almost went 10-BASE2 due to cost. I remember we had a Netware server and two computers. It was kind of overkill but it was fun!
- FredPret 3y ago
  People with the interest and skill to debug technical systems have always been a tiny minority
- ryandrake 3y ago
  > They're great kids and I'm not criticizing them but I've had some concerns that there might not be anyone around to keep the lights on when our generation is gone. In our day using a computer and getting on the internet had huge barriers to entry but that came with the benefit of an explosion in tech talent. I mean, thinking back to the '80s, I was probably one out of maybe 3 kids in my entire class who even had a home computer, let alone knew how to do anything more than play games. Back to the '90s, many more classmates had computers, but only a tiny, tiny few of us knew how to program and edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Back to the early 2000s, I was the only person I knew with greater than a dial-up Internet connection or who knew the difference between a local and public IP address. 99.5% have always been laypeople, and that's OK. For every 200 kids today who only know how to ask their mom for the WiFi password, there's one who is setting up a home lab, and that's enough for the world's tech needs in twenty years.
Aaronstotle 3y ago
This reminds me, I lost my flipper zero and need to find it
qup 3y ago
What cool things did he do with his Flipper Zero?
- mdip 3y ago
  Mostly exploration and a little mischief -- cloning his garage door opener, turning the smart board off (and on) on the teacher in class (similar to those keychain devices that roll through the off codes on TV IR remotes), trying to break into the NFC tag the Laser Tag equipment uses at the place we play. I've since sent him some suggestions :)
bradstewart 3y ago
Same exact path here, just a few years later. Tried gaming on my mom's Gateway, which led to building my first PC with a Pentium D, which led to a hobby of constantly buying/selling hardware on ebay and swapping stuff out, which led to an EE degree, and here we are. No video games, no PC tinkering and overlocking, no EE degree.
xu3u32 3y ago
how old are your kids?

by mdip 3y ago

fatnoah 3y ago

> Had it not been for the experience of "tinkering" with that PC and its predecessor (a ten year old 8088), I would likely have never become a software developer. Now that I'm 25 years into my software career, one thing that absolutely blows me away is just how few software engineers in my teams actually own their own computers. It's less than 50% for my current team. Meanwhile, I'm the weirdo with several (gaming PC, gaming laptop PC, and general purpose MBP) in addition to my work laptop. > It was such a good experience that I opted to buy my son a decent gaming laptop to graduate him from consoles. Over the last year, the same thing has happened to him I went through that experience with my son as well. He's never shown great interest in being taught computer stuff, but did want to help with a PC build. Now, he's tech support for his friends.

datadrivenangel 3y ago
The trend of people not even owning a laptop is fascinating. Smartphones are amazing devices, but how do people do that?!
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Can't speak for OP, but we have a lot of people who request MacBooks at work and just do their personal activity on it. Saves them the $2k for the device and they don't have to concern themselves with it being lost, damaged or stolen. This does lead to what can only be described as an acrimonious custody battle whenever we do layoffs. High rates of "lost" equipment returns led to us ransomwaring the things to hold their unsynced personal data hostage until they return the equipment.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    > High rates of "lost" equipment returns led to us ransomwaring the things to hold their unsynced personal data hostage until they return the equipment. Is that really worth it to get back what I would assume is on average a 3 year old laptop? Do you then re-issue this old, used gear to your new hires? That aside, using your work equipment for personal stuff (or vice-versa) is just a really dumb idea.
    - fwmcbumcrumble 3y ago
      > Is that really worth it to get back what I would assume is on average a 3 year old laptop? Do you then re-issue this old, used gear to your new hires? It depends on the device. A 3 year old M1 MBP is virtually identical to an almost brand new M2 MBP. There's no need to chuck an M1 MBP in the trash (metaphorically and literally) just because it's "3 years old". Now if it's a 3 year old low end Intel machine then I'd be more than happy if it went away.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      It's less about the hardware itself and more about recovering/accounting for the data on it. If we can attest that no IP left with them and the device is out of its service life, sometimes we'll let them keep it out of pity. Ironically the most frequent justification is recognizance that they don't own a computer and can't easily look for another job.

kkielhofner 3y ago

I have a similar story as many on HN do. I had been stringing 10BASE2 coax around my "home lab" for years before I realized people will actually pay me to play with my toys. Of course I then sunk all of that money into more toys for the home lab. I now have a lot of friends with kids and some of them are teenagers. I've had some concern in my mind for a while now - their total knowledge of tech comes down to asking for a wifi password and watching prank videos (or whatever) on an app. When you ask them what they want to do when they grow up they say "influencer"... The most technical thing they know how to do is reboot "the router" when the internet is down. The second diagnostic step is to yell that the internet is down. They're great kids and I'm not criticizing them but I've had some concerns that there might not be anyone around to keep the lights on when our generation is gone. In our day using a computer and getting on the internet had huge barriers to entry but that came with the benefit of an explosion in tech talent. My point is it's great to hear there are still some nerdy kids out there getting under the covers!

riwsky 3y ago
Is this not how the generation before us felt about our inability to repair our cars and radios?
mdip 3y ago
That's funny -- when my familiy was planning to move to a home that was being built, my Dad got out there before they put the drywall up and ran telephone and cable television to every bedroom. I followed in behind him with my punch down tool and put a shiny, new Ethernet port in every room, too. This was 1993. There was no broadband. We almost went 10-BASE2 due to cost. I remember we had a Netware server and two computers. It was kind of overkill but it was fun!
FredPret 3y ago
People with the interest and skill to debug technical systems have always been a tiny minority
ryandrake 3y ago
> They're great kids and I'm not criticizing them but I've had some concerns that there might not be anyone around to keep the lights on when our generation is gone. In our day using a computer and getting on the internet had huge barriers to entry but that came with the benefit of an explosion in tech talent. I mean, thinking back to the '80s, I was probably one out of maybe 3 kids in my entire class who even had a home computer, let alone knew how to do anything more than play games. Back to the '90s, many more classmates had computers, but only a tiny, tiny few of us knew how to program and edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Back to the early 2000s, I was the only person I knew with greater than a dial-up Internet connection or who knew the difference between a local and public IP address. 99.5% have always been laypeople, and that's OK. For every 200 kids today who only know how to ask their mom for the WiFi password, there's one who is setting up a home lab, and that's enough for the world's tech needs in twenty years.

Aaronstotle 3y ago

This reminds me, I lost my flipper zero and need to find it

qup 3y ago

What cool things did he do with his Flipper Zero?

mdip 3y ago
Mostly exploration and a little mischief -- cloning his garage door opener, turning the smart board off (and on) on the teacher in class (similar to those keychain devices that roll through the off codes on TV IR remotes), trying to break into the NFC tag the Laser Tag equipment uses at the place we play. I've since sent him some suggestions :)

bradstewart 3y ago

Same exact path here, just a few years later. Tried gaming on my mom's Gateway, which led to building my first PC with a Pentium D, which led to a hobby of constantly buying/selling hardware on ebay and swapping stuff out, which led to an EE degree, and here we are. No video games, no PC tinkering and overlocking, no EE degree.

xu3u32 3y ago

how old are your kids?