My first home computer

Now by now you must think that I grew up with computers in my house since I was little.  Well, I was a kid in the 80s, and there were quite a few good home computers in the 80s (commodore 64, Atari ST, etc.) but my first home computer was a 286 that my parents had rented.  That's right, rented. It had DOS 5 on it and barely any games, and it was my first home computer.  Shortly after that my dad found something better, a used 486.  In fact we didn't rent the 286 for very long at all, and after learning how much they paid, I'm not surprised they got rid of it as soon as they could.  Since that first bunch of 486s and then AMD pentium replacements to the iMac and MacBook they have now, my parents have owned all manner of computers.

The first computer I had in my room was an XT with MS/DOS, but that didn't last long before I got one of the old 486s upgraded to an AMD pentium replacement (socket 7 remember those?).  I had windows 98 on it for a while, but then I saw a news cast about linux, and some advertisements for TurboLinux distributions at Future Shop (talk about cheap, cost $30 and had a $40 mail in rebate).  So TurboLinux was my first linux distribution and it was also on what was essentially my first computer (XTs don't count do they?).  That crappy distro really taught me a lot about linux, bash, rpm, and how to manually install linux.

So there you have it, my first computers, and my first linux.

Where My Dream Began

I was very small and even shorter.  My parents had taken me out of public school and given me a chance to succeed in a private Montessori school halfway through grade 2.  Now this may seem counter productive to some, but let me tell you their reasoning.  I was a very bright child and could read not only quickly but at a very high level for my age.  I was also quick at most other subjects in school, but reading was my favourite.  In our reading group I would finish the assigned book the same day it was provided while every other student was still only on chapter 1.  The public school I was in did not allow me to go into a higher reading group, so my parents started searching for a different school.  I had 2 weeks off school while they were looking, and they brought me to a bunch of different places, but the only school in the city that would allow me to go at my own pace was this private montessori school.  Because I enrolled late in the year I was given a chair near the back of the class right in front of a computer.  It was the first computer I had ever seen, and after a week of sitting in front of it, and learning about the different games and programs on it already, I vowed to one day learn how to program a computer.

This was the start of my dream to become a computer programmer, and it's been one of the driving forces in my life.

iPhone 3GS, jailbroken, unlocked, and on Solo!

That's right, it's done.  Turns out I was right and the iPad baseband was the problem.  Either it was downloaded wrong, installed wrong or both.  So until my Pops sees this I've got an iPhone.

Broken phone

So the samsung link is done for.  Won't keep a charge, but worst of all it won't even turn on while plugged into the wall.  Now I'm working on unlocking an iPhone 3GS I acquired from my Pa, and it's not going smoothly.  Of course my girlfriend is all worried about if I'll ever get a phone working again, she tries to hide it from me, which is nice of her, but I can still tell it bugs her that I don't have a phone right now.  I ordered one of those i-SmartSIM SIM unlockers from dealextreme.com, but that could take months to get here.  In the meantime, I have to find an unlocked phone, or unlock one, which is why I'm messing around with this iPhone.  I've got everything installed properly (I think) but it still says no service and the carrier button is missing in settings.  When I remove the SIM card, nothing happens (which is weird), and when I put the SIM card back in nothing happens (which is weirder).  I'm not sure what's going on exactly but I'm going to re-try uploading the 6.15 baseband, and maybe that'll get the whole thing working smoothly again.

Big V Small Talk

Family newsletter is out, and once again it's awesome!

remember remember the 5th of november

gunpowder treason and plot.

Guy Fawkes day is just one more example of why you shouldn't trust anyone sitting on a giant pile of gun powder.

My how time flys

Well it's been weeks since i've said anything on this blog, so i figure it's time for another update.  I'm quite proud of my girlfriend, because she is getting really good grades at Niagara College.  This is her last year there and she is so psyched about being an Education Assistant.  Me, I'm still not going to college, even though that seems to be the only way to get into the video game industry lately.  I've heard of all these independant games getting all this support from Steam, and Microsoft Games, and Sony, and Nintendo.  Just look at how big World of Goo got!  But I'm just not sure how to implement my ideas right now.  I would love to build a game with all my ideas in it, but I'm worried about it.  It's such a broad scale idea, an RPG in a world where steel is hard to find, with money based weight constraints (gold is heavy, but no game seems to care), area based market availability, fighting game mechanics for battles, and skill sets you can learn from different masters (like in kung fu movies).  I've got a text file laying around with lots more ideas, but they haven't all been fleshed out.  And this idea has really been kicking around since the late 90s when RPGs were 2d and so were fighting games.

Oh and by the way this is my idea!  No stealing!