This computer is the first real computer that I ever have laid my fingers on. It was a 486DX-33 with 8MB of memory and a 250MB hard disk. The computer also included a nice SVGA display and a 24-pin dot matrix printer. It was by far the top of the line computer in its days. The computer ran MS-DOS 5, Windows 3.1, Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS, Lotus 123, and some games.

The new and more powerful computer allowed me to complete tasks that were previously impossible including printing my school reports and storing huge amounts of information. The SVGA display was also sharper and displays more colors than its old CGA and Monochrome display counterparts. This lead to an increase in productivity for me. I could type and edit longer and more thought out essays than I previously have done by hand. The clear increases in productivity I gain from this computer sparked my curiosity in tinkering with the computer so as to gain more productivity and performance from the computer.

I first tinkered, with the help of books and videos, the operating system mainly for the purposes of optimizing the disk performance and memory management of MS-DOS. The system optimization process exposed me to the concepts of cpu cache, memory hierarchy, bandwidth, and latency. Hard disk optimization was also a major part of the process since disk drives are the slowest components of the computer. I learned concepts of filesystems and partitions, and the organization of the disk drive including the cylinders, head, and sectors.

Tinkering and optimizing my computer also developed my interest in programming. The idea that I could tell the computer what to do was quite irresistible. I started to program in Basic and wrote a few sizable programs from a simple screensaver to a program that can control external machines such as robots via the computer's I/O. I wasn't though as a proficient in programming as I am in troubleshooting and optimizing computers. However, I was able grasp simple programming concepts such as loops, conditionals, and subroutines. This was a factor in why I ended up on the information technology administration track as opposed to the software developer track.

Software wasn't the only thing I was interested in, I was also interested in the innards of the computer, namely the hardware. My father purchase a book published by McGraw-Hill called "Build Your Own 486/486SX and Save a Bundle 2nd Edition - 1993" by Aubrey Pilgrim. The book soon gave me the confidence in attempting to build my own computer though I did not have to experience to attempt to open my own 486.

I decided as a high school project to demonstrate how to assemble a computer. One of my teachers, Mr. Edward Goldman, was kind enough to let me to experiment with the computer's hardware in his lab. I first assembled an old 286 using parts lying around in the lab. Unfortunately, the computer blew up. However my teacher did not complain and instead encouraged not only me but my mother to allow me to experiment more with the computer's hardware. To this day I have to credit him for allowing me to acquire that experience. My second attempt, also a 286, was more successful and I got an "A" for the project.

The project gave me the confidence to be able to work with the hardware of the computer. I was soon able to build a computer from parts. The ability to build a computer from parts save me a lot of money, $500 as oppose to $1200, and I could customize the machine anyway I want. Working with both hardware and software allows me to troubleshoot computers more effectively and soon people ask me to assist them with their computers. The experience in working with both hardware, software and troubleshooting both of them form the basis of my decision to go into computers as a career.

Learning about computers didn't come without a price. All of that experimenting, tinkering, optimizing, and exploring have resulted in destruction of my data many times. Some was dumb as trying the surface media analysis feature in the BIOS. Other was trying every system DOS commands without reading the documentation as to its effects. However, I gained knowledge in restoration of the system, the need for backing the data before doing anything weird, and reading the manual first (if they are written well). In addition to destroying my computer via software, I have destroyed even more computers via hardware. I don't really remember but I believe I must have blown up everything from whole computers to displays, power supplies, hard disks, motherboards, and CPUs. I have also been shocked a number of time by computers, not a pleasant experience to say the least.