#103. First Computer (Saturday, July 18, 1998)

#103. First Computer (Saturday, July 18, 1998)

What was your best day…of experiencing a new technology for the first time?

To set the right context on what “first computer” means here, please note the year. This was a bygone era where it was completely normal for a middle-class family – like we were – to not own a computer. For the longest time, we simply didn’t have a need for one.1

But with thanks to my own constant begging (which must have been worse than I recall), my dad decided to finally bite the bullet and get one. And with Windows 98 having been released just a few weeks earlier, it was perfect timing.

My memories from that time have faded for the most part, but I recall being extremely excited in the days leading up to this. An excitement that was not comparable to anything prior.

On the day the computer was finally delivered, I first had to sit through a few hours at a department store – which felt like several days – where we took a whole suite of family photos with my two-month old brother2. But the wait was worthwhile.

We eventually got home, my dad set up the computer (a massive desktop in those days) in the basement while I watched in anticipation, and then he inserted the CD-ROM for the Monopoly computer game… That was the first thing I ever used a computer for.

To this day, the game still holds up. The graphics were ahead of its time, the AI was reasonably intelligent3, and the music was banger (with this railroad-sounding theme being an all-time classic). Despite not fully knowing the rules at that point4, I just played in a whirlwind of bliss for a few hours.

Then my dad showed me the two other CD-ROMs he had gotten. One for this Sesame Street interactive “learn your numbers and ABCs” game (which was surprisingly challenging in parts), and another for the Grolier personal encyclopedia5.

I was deep into exploring all of this in fascination, late into the night, when my mom came down with a fun surprise to cap the day. While cleaning the house, she found this “secret letter” (her words) I had written a few months ago, apologizing to my dad after he couldn’t get some home video cassettes to work and we had a big argument about that. (I hid the letter and never gave it to them.) I recall the letter being quite well-written and sincere for a seven-year-old; though when my mom started reading it out loud right there, I ran upstairs and hid for a full five minutes to spare myself the embarrassment.

My first night with a piece of technology that would be by my side almost every single day (for twenty-five years and counting) since. And it was a memorable one indeed.

  1. Noting again, that this is just prior to the advent of the Internet and all that came with it.
  2. As part of that, they did this weird thing (which I’ve never seen anywhere else) where they covered my mom in a blanket, so when my brother was holding onto her it looked like he was by himself.
  3. So much so that, in fear of losing, for the first four years I pretty much exclusively played with all human-controlled players – with the simple goal of accumulating as much money as possible.
  4. And thus missing out on one of the coolest in-game transitions ever. When houses start appearing on the board, the angle of the tokens moving shifts from linear first person to this three-dimensional side angle. Pretty insane (for a kid, at least).
  5. Obviously, this was way before the Wikipedia days.