My Journey with Computers
My interest in computers began in the 1980s, when I was a young boy and had the chance to work and play on a Commodore 64 and later a Commodore 128. Like many children at the time, I was also very excited about game consoles.
Back then it was not about serious work – I was simply impressed by what a computer could do. People often talked about the possibilities of computers, some realistic and some more imaginary, and that always fascinated me.
I still enjoy a good film on this topic, such as Ex Machina (2014) or Her (2013).
It all started with copying digital data. In my country, there were almost no shops where you could buy a game or a program. You had to know someone who would copy it for you, or lend it to you so you could copy it yourself.
Later I discovered the EPROM module, which impressed me much more than cassettes and floppy disks. It was something like a USB stick today.
At first I only knew it as a cartridge that you bought with games or programs already on it, so I started to explore how I could write to it myself.
Finding information was not easy. The internet was not yet available, at least not in my country, and libraries had very few books on the subject. This was a long time ago, so I no longer remember the exact order of events.
I do remember moving from the Commodore 64 to the 128, and later to a 286 PC, which I bought in parts and built myself. Then I started experimenting with connections.
Devices did not have standard cables or communication protocols, and connecting to other computers over the telephone line was only just becoming possible. These connections were very slow and made all kinds of interesting sounds.
Technology developed faster than I could learn, especially when more and more information and hardware became available. In primary school, computer lessons meant working with Logo. In secondary school, we used computers for mechanics – we entered the data one day and checked the results the next.
Later I also did some programming and application development. Over the years I have installed many Windows and Linux systems and solved many problems with them. One reason for this was that programs depended – and still depend – on a working operating system, and at that time many people used pirated copies of Windows that were full of errors.
I installed, tested and experimented with protocols for various network services, including email, on Windows Server as well as on Debian and Red Hat Linux, and probably a few other systems I no longer remember.
Almost every programming project also included work with databases, such as Microsoft Access and MySQL.
I have not done this work professionally for many years, so some of my knowledge is not as fresh as it used to be. Still, I can solve most problems on my own, because I am willing to look up and read the system logs, as I describe in my Troubleshooting Linux article.
I no longer remember many commands by heart, but today it is very easy to find information online. Even in the past I kept a list of command-line commands and only learned the basic ones by heart. When you use a command often, you remember it anyway.
People sometimes ask whether I write these articles myself or whether AI writes them for me. I understand that some people have doubts about AI, but I think it is sensible to use the tools that are available to us. So yes, I use AI when I write.
This does not mean that I simply ask it to write an article about something. For historical overviews, I ask AI to summarise the history of a topic. For everything else, I guide it, write or correct parts myself, and at the end I check the whole text for grammar and style.
English is not my first language, so I let AI help the text sound more natural for English readers. This also makes it easier to translate the articles into other languages.
I write these articles mainly for myself, but I see no reason to keep them private. I believe that sharing knowledge helps everyone, so I publish them in the hope that they may be useful to someone else too.
Over the years I have also learned that explaining a topic to others is one of the best ways to understand it better yourself. Above all, this is my hobby – it helps me stay connected with technology that I have always enjoyed.