Joshua A.C. NewmanMar 12

You got into #computers because something in it spoke to you. You see a computer monitor as a window into a world of unexplored possibilities.

I'm designing & building a computer that is just for exploring possibilities. It's for art, not for making bosses richer. I'll sell it because that's how it works in our socioeconomic universe, but it's there to share.

Computers are for fucking around, making art, and falling in love.

#retrocomputing #tech #computer #computermusic #ObliquePalette

Show threadGabeMoralesVRMar 12
@JoshuaACNewman I got into computers because my dad was into them, and we bonded over it. The same reason I'm into wood working and gardening. So fundamental were computers to my upbringing that I learned how to read before kindergarten because my dad would go out of town and it meant he'd have to leave me small notes with commands to use DOS to load games like Robocop.
Show threadJoshua A.C. NewmanMar 12
@GabeMoralesVR
That's fuckin magic.
Show threadGabeMoralesVRMar 12
@JoshuaACNewman It really was, something that was right time, right place, right dad sort of thing. I mean we *really* got into computers. This was the 80s. We joined HAL-PC, at the time the largest PC Users club in the country. Became adminstrators there, I wound up teaching a SIG later in life at HAL-PC. We would go to tradeshows for fun. I remember seeing a keynote on the "Corel Draw" lol. I remember the day my dad said he was going to build a computer, I thought that was impossible.
Show threadGabeMoralesVRMar 12
@JoshuaACNewman Also, we got Compuserve in 1989. Like, *VERY* into computers, way before it was even common. We used to go on worlds chat 3D in the mid 90's. We played Zork, and Ultima, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. My dad never got into computer programming, but *I* did and he did everything he could to support and encourage it. My dad is in his 70s. He still uses his computer more than the average person. He uses Linux exclusively, as we have done since 2000.
Show threadJoshua A.C. Newman

@GabeMoralesVR
We got a C64 in 1985? And then Mac Plus in 1987, which introduced me to HyperCard. My dad could see there was something good through that little window but couldn’t figure out how to get at it. But he admired that I could.

Got to college and my computer science/AI prof loved it as much as I. Taught a course in it.

These days I grudgingly use C but scratch my HC itch with #plugdata and write C for microcontrollers that it talks with. Dad remains boggled but supportive.

Mar 12 at 4:03amWeb
Show threadGabeMoralesVRMar 12
@JoshuaACNewman hypercard is how I got into computer programming! Took a class on it in the magnet program I was in. Fell completely in love. We didn't have a mac, though, we had an 8088 that ran MS-DOS. So I took up gw basic at home as an alternative. But hypercard is definitely what got me into this. I got this a few christmases ago, awesome tech. I also have a similar soft spot for Visual Basic 6.0. I fully love C, though, and it's neighbor C++. 68000 assembly will always have my heart, tho.