Putting Fun Back Into Computing

I can still remember the first time I got hooked on computers. Actually that has happen four times now.

The first time was way back in 1981. I was stationed in Japan and a friend of mine had a Commodore Vic 20. I played on his Vic 20 for a few months. I thought how cool is this you type some instructions in here and run it and you have a program that runs.

Then when I got back to the States I got a Commodore 64. I still have it, and it still works.


By 1987 I got hooked on IBM Computers running DOS. By around 1988 Microsoft Dos put out windows 3.0. It was Black and White and did almost nothing but it was all graphic.

By 1992 Windows 3.11 was in full stream and Microsoft was working on Windows 95. No Dos.
Up to now you had to boot up in DOS and run WIN to get windows to run.

Roughly 1995 Windows 95 came out. I can't remember if it came out late 94 or middle 95.
It booted up in windows. But as with most of Microsoft's offerings it was full of bugs. The Computer users of the world (Mainly Americans) debugged Windows for them. Not only did we debug windows we also paid Microsoft to do so. Then when Windows 95 was to be rewritten to fix the problems they renamed it Windows 98.

Again we paid good money to debug Windows 98. I can't remember how many people lost all their information updating. Now the next hitch pin in Microsoft showed up. Easy access by hackers. Viruses, and Hacks were a common thing.

On a side line I wanted to use Linux but never had a machine that would run Linux. At that time you needed much more than I had in my computer.

Well About 2001 or 2002 Windows XP came out. Guess what it would not run Window 98 software. So if you upgraded to XP you also had to buy new software to run on XP and again we debuged XP for Microsoft and they laughed all the way to the bank. That made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. Putting out trash that everyone purchased.

Well about the time Microsoft Vista came out Microsoft stopped supporting 98. So did all the software vendors. By then my Windows 95 machine broke down. I got a second hand machine that ran Windows XP. That was my mistake. That used machine lasted less than a year. At that time I was able to run Linux on this crippled computer. But it would not run Windows.

At that time I got a laptop and it had XP on it and it ran good. I got a computer built, and it cost more than one from the Electronic places but it had a good video card and I could run some games on it.

I then got another laptop with XP and it ran fine after I got it, again it was used. Put a new harddrivce in it. I sold it after a year and got another laptop and this one had Vista.

All the time I was playing with Linux and trying many different distros. They are all pretty much the same. They all have the kernel, but the different companies develop Linux in their own way. It led down to about 8 companies developing Linux and hundreds more using one of these 8, (I found mostly were Debian). They then created different flavors of Linux.

For someone new to Linux I would suggest PCLinuxOS, or Freespire. These are set up to be compliant with many video and audio codexes. They are basically ready to go right out of the box. The others you would have to download this driver this codex this latest version of this program or the latest of that program and maybe it would work. Keep playing with the different programs and sooner or later it would work.

I now have a computer waiting on harddrives to make a Linux machine again. My wife like Linux. She loves the games that come on the disk. LLGP was one of my favorite distro. I also like any with several multi features.

Going back to putting the fun back into computing. Linux has done just that. It has put the fun back into computing.

Take some time and a few distros and start enjoying computers again.

Another note. Linux (Most distros) are free. Most of the software to be productive on Linux is free too. Where on Windows you pay for the Operating System then you have to go out and pay for the applications to run on your computer as well. With Linux you can get most free. Just order a set of cd's or dvd's. Or you can download them. The only problem here is it takes so long to download. But if you have the time you can save some money and get a great Operating System that you don't have to drop in 5 years to get another one. Here you can run what you got or upgrade and it won't cost you.

Over all Linux is the way to go if you want to save money.

Have fun Carl.