I was an anti-tech person. I used to make comics, paint and spend most of my time playing acoustic/classical guitar. I was into classical music & books. Then, in the autumn of 2003, I got my first computer: a Pentium 1, 600 Mhz, with 32MB of RAM and a HDD of 8GB, running Windows 98. The desktop computer still had a CRT monitor attached to it. Both the desktop PC and the monitor had stickers on them, something related to Dublin, Ireland. Most likely, this PC belonged to a local institution in Ireland, before being thrown away.
This computer, since I got it, never worked properly. It was infected with a virus that forced it to work under a low/pixelated video resolution. The computer stood under my home desk for more than 4 months before I finally decided to touch it. My first problem was, I had no clue to navigate through the operating system - don't even mention installing applications or games onto it. So, the first trip was to the local library, where I bought Windows 98 Second Edition for dummies/beginners - no, it wasn't a "complete idiot's guide" series. That book was thick as hell, it was like a bible and it took me some time before I started reading it. Usually, I read it late at night, when everyone else in the house was asleep.
I took it step by step. First, I've learned how to create a new folder, how to move it, how to delete & copy&paste. The final chapters concerned installing a clean version of windows 98 SE. So, once I finished the book, before installing the clean version of a new operating system (in my case, windows 98SE) I had to remove the virus on it, the one that made the OS work under a less video resolution than it was supposed to. Since I had no access to the Internet - only dial-up, which was fuckin' expensive and slow as hell - my only other option was to buy magazines which used to have a CD attached to them. Those CD's contained AV programs, OS cleaning programs, tutorials and PC games.
Thus, I managed in two or three years to have a huge collection of magazines & CD's.
As far as I can remember, the antivirus that I installed and that helped me get rid of the virus was called RAV. RAV used to be very popular back then, it was made by a Romanian company and was finally bought by Microsoft. Once the virus was gone, I kept installing software and games - as long as my HDD space allowed me.
Then again, if something works, why fix it? Because, otherwise, I'll never learn. So, I had to "break" it in order to learn how to fix it. I became so good at it, that people used to call me in order to fix their computers. I've upgraded my EdoDRAM memory capacity, my HDD and my video card. I kept that computer for another 2 years before being able to buy my first "modern" PC and switch to the (back then) latest operating system - good old Windows XP.
That was it: my first contact with a computer involved a virus, an "antic" PC and a book.
