As one of my lighter blog posts, I’ll be telling that story that every engineer gets to tell as some point: the reason why I got into this whole thing in the first place. It’s a topic that comes up from time to time so I thought I’d write it here for posterity.
Catching the bug
As a child of late 1980s, I grew up during the period where computers were there in schools and starting to appear in homes. But I started my journey a little earlier when, as a 6-year old, I used an old second-hand typewriter my mother bought for me to type out pages from my favourite books and to write little stories. I have these fond memories of grabbing a few ladybird books, taking the typewriter out of it’s little bag and pressing pressing each of the keys. These smooth cream coloured keys, the sound of the line change and the smell of ink. I’m an overly nostalgic hipster who still owns one of these old machines, but I understand the nostalgia as it really is the first thing that got me hooked on being able to type words and create a thing.
Once I was a little older, maybe 8 or 9, there were two computers in my life, one at school and one at home. The school computer was the Acorn Archimedes which I got to use maybe a once a week for typing things up and playing the odd game. But it was my home computer, a second-hand Amstrad CPC where my love was born. Already discontinued by the time I got my hands on it, it was still my first love and I would spend hours playing on that, and wearing out my cassette tape of Indiana Jones and The Crusade.
By that point, I new there was nothing else I wanted to do. While my friends wanted to be outside playing football, I just wanted to be inside playing games and writing stories. It wasn’t until a few years later that I would know that this is how I spend the rest of my life, but this was certainly the years where I caught that bug.
Like every naughties teenager
My early teenage years were shaped by communicating and playing with my friends using the technology of the era. This included long conversations on ICQ and MSN Messenger and hours spend playing with and making levels for games like Half-Life and Team Fortress Classic. These were the years where I learnt how to write websites, code in Visual Basic and how I can learn just about anything I wanted if I spent enough time in front of the screen. During these years in was various Packard Bell machines (the one I remember the most is the PB 9770), often sitting in the corner of the dining room or a bedroom. There was really nothing I wanted to do more than wait for the dial up sound, connect to the internet and browse for whatever topic was in my head in that moment. I don’t think much has changed really.
While at school I was more on the academic side of the fence, I wasn’t exactly the smartest kid in the room and school was always a bit of a struggle for me both academically and socially. Despite the challenges, I discovered during these years that there was one thing that I was good at - computers - it was reflected in my grades and showed me that this is something that I really wanted to continue doing. A lot of kids in the later years of school, really struggle with decisions that impact their future - picking GCSEs, choosing A-levels and even choosing a degree course but not me. I knew for a very long time that I wanted to continue to work with computers so the choices really made themselves. It was such as a strong direction for me that it took me a long time to empathise with people that didn’t have just a strong vision and direction for themselves.
The usual path
So, with my vision for myself and with my first laptop (some windows Vista machine as thick as a hardback) I went to study Computer Science. I’m not sure I need to expand on this part much further, as it is a pretty typical path. I suppose what’s interesting is that many of peers that started with me in the first year, no longer work in tech. Some do, but there are also lots in other careers like teaching, engineering, architecture etc.
I think it’s really been my early experiences, my realisation that anything is possible with these machines if you have enough time and my passion that keeps me working in this field year after year. I also think it’s also the reason why I like working with companies that still have heritage technology running there businesses. It’s an opportunity to learn something that lots of others worry about and an opportunity to still occasionally provide that “wow!” moment for myself and for them.