I am going to yell you a story. Just go with it. Lose yourself in the nostalgia.
It's around 1990. Your father comes home one day carrying a beige box and a CRT monitor. He quickly explains that this is a computer, a present for you and your brother. Little did he know that he would pay for upgrades for a more than a decade to come, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Back to the nostalgia.
He quickly connects everything together and presses the power button. You marvel at the stream of text on the monitor. A while later everything stops and and you are left with a weird symbol and a blinking cursor.
C:\>█
You are mesmerized by the experience and begin probing the keyboard. You type a few characters and they show up on the monitor. You struggle to determine where each letter is but it feels good! You proceed to type out your name. It feels good!
Your father gave you a note containing some text that the guy that sold him the computer gave him.
You proceed to type the following:
cd games
C:\GAMES>
SURELY there are some games on this computer. After a while you manage to start a game. You have no idea what you did but a game called Dangerous Dave comes up.
That was your first game. It will be imprinted in your memory for ever. Over the course of the coming days and weeks you explore all the games that came preinstalled with your computer, a common thing for computers purchased during that time period.
You feel the urge to investigate your computer. See what it can do. A friend of yours mentioned programming. You are curious so you give it a try.
You begin with pascal. You start out by drawing random shapes on the monitor. You continue to program a circle that bounces off of the edges of the monitor. Fascinating stuff!
You continue informing yourself by purchacing magazines. About the only tool at your disposal. No internet yet. Nobody you know has a computer. Just a couple of your friends from school.
Some time has now passed. You first upgrade to a 486 DX2-80 and later to a 486 DX4-100. You would always upgrade when the US dollar is low because of the (more) favourable exchange rate against the Drachma.
You think to yourself: "Why is there a button that doubles the performance? That is stupid. Why would I ever not press it?" You will find the truth about this button an embarrassing number of years later.
When reading the local publication named PC Master you find out about a piece of software named 3D Studio. The editors were able to superimpose a box over an image of a port in Greece using the correct perspective thus creating a 3D pier. You are gobsmacked. You want this software.
After a while you convince your father to purchase this software for you. You told him that you were going to use it to model well-known monuments in Greece. He is not going to stand between you and your artistic side. He wants you to develop yourself.
You travel to downtown Athens, near the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). This is a road called "Stournari Str." nicknamed Greece's Silicon valley. This is about the only place in Athens you can buy hardware/software.
You happily drag your father to the one store you know about. This is a place called Papasoririou. Papasotiriou is a famous bookstore that also sells software.
You approach a clerk sitting behind a desk and enquire about purchasing 3D studio.
"Certainly", the clerk responds. "Let me look it up for you".
His face goes from happy to surprised rather quickly. He glances on his monitor, then your father's face.
"Do you know how much this software costs, Sir?"
"It doesn't matter, it's for my child. How much can it cost anyway?" your father replies.
"It costs 1.500.000 drachmas, Sir" the clerk responds.
You turn your head quickly to the direction of your father though you are unable to make eye contact with him. The only thing you can see is the dust left behind after he bolts towards the door. You swear that he ran home at the speed of light.
Some time goes by and you have learned about this exciting new thing called the Internet. There is a company in Greece called Compulink that is selling subscriptions.
You finally bother your father enough to purchase a subscription.
After purchasing the subscription, you once again head towards Stournari Str. to purchase a modem. The kind folks over at COSMODATA are kind enough to install the modem and set up the software needed.
At that moment in time you only know about 2 websites.
Once the set-up is completed you are told to give it a try. So you do, by entering nba.com in the URL bar.
It feels good. Accessing the internet strikes a chord with you. It makes you feel funny. It is a weird feeling that you can't really describe. At that moment you realize that you have access to all the resources in the world. You are connected to everyone and everything. It feels weird but great.
When you arrive at home you wait for everyone to go to sleep and quickly proceed to visit that second website you know about... sex.com.
A lot of years have passed since then. My love for games and technology is still strong. I continue to further my knowledge in a lot of new sectors.
"Γηράσκω δ΄αιεί πολλά διδασκόμενος" -- Solon the Athenian
Computers were my hobby and I managed to also make computers my work. Hardware and software has come a long way as we have integrated complex networks of services into our daily lives.
Now VR and AI is on the horizon.
I can only dream of what's next, sitting here, still waiting for my jetpack.
