My history with computers:

Anyone who read my short bio noticed my first computer ever was an IBM XT, the 2nd hottest thing back in 1985! Next to that IBM PC (80286) that I never got my hands on. It had a dual 5.25" disk drive and no harddrive whatsoever! This great 4 color machine is how I started programming and played my first computer games. The programming part was easy because of the old GWBASIC environment which is exactly the same as the Commodore 64. You remember having to "LOAD" those games and the programming was displayed on the screen? I found some games that I just couldn't win so I changed something about them. I got into text adventures with that system (what other options did I really have anyway). "Wishbringer" was the one I clearly remember, I never did finish that silly game!

And then the revolution..

In 1990 with my brand new 386/25. YES! I didn't know back then about the technology curve and that 486s had already been released, but thats ok because this computer is where the games exploded. These new Super VGA graphics were where it was at! Just after I got this new computer, a friend of my dad's gave me a stack of about 30 3.5" disks (a new invetion to me) and I was instantly propelled into the world of popular gaming, courtesy of a group of people aptly named "The Humble Guys". One of those disks included Leisure Suit Larry 3! Yes, my first Sierra adventure. I couldn't get enough of a little guy in a leisure suit walking around trying to pick up chicks. Absolutely brilliant I tell you! I may have been a pre-adolescent, but this game was great. Looking at it today, LSL3, was definatly the most lewd of the series, with sex, racism, toned down just enough to not offend everyone that bothered to play it out. I ended up buying them anyway because it was worth it to have the funny manuals. Needless to say, I was hooked on those sierra adventures and I got around to playing a number of them. Other great gaming influences at the time came from Interplay, ID (WOLFENSTEIN 3D BABY!!), and Microprose. Check out my Games page for a more detailed rundown of all the great stuff I played then.

Towards the tail end of this computer's life, I discovered my 2400 baud modem and the fact it actually had a use. The same friend who gave me all the games told me he had something called a Bullentin Board System (BBS). So I thought, why not. whipped out that dialing program I had, Quick Link III I think it was called. Listened to that now familiar beeping of a modem and I was thinking "Wow that sounds just like that computer from War Games!". A little text screen popped up with the name of the BBS that I cant remember. I don't think I was too impressed since it was nothing but ASCII graphics, that means no color at all. I found out later that it was my client program, not his BBS. I quickly upgraded to the best BBS dialer ever, TELIX! I then noticed a list of other BBS in the local area on my friends page, so I figured I would check those out too. More dialing. I found this BBS called "The Castle Talamasca" and I quickly came to the conclusion that my friend's BBS sucked and I never went back. This BBS had three nodes with over 50 active users! How could I resist that, we played these popular door games like Legends of the Red Dragon and Usurper. This BBS too had a list, and soon, I was networked with the whole county. Then it was time to upgrade

The Newest thing!

The Pentium! 1994 was here and so was the Pentium processor. I didnt really know what it was all about, even though Intel had these new commericals that looked like you were flying through a processor. Well lo and behold, for Christmas, I had a brand new Pentium-90. Wow! I called all my friends instantly and my 386 was in a box by that afternoon, but not before copying the whole harddrive with a 3.5" disk. The best thing about this new system was that Doom 2 ran like a charm!. I was still using DOS because windows 95 hadn't come out yet, so a group of people from the BBS and my school friends started playing modem games like Doom 2 and Warcraft religiously. The 14400 modem was a godsend! I would have to say I was the best of the bunch, probably because I was the only kid on the block with a Pentium! My friend Sam, (a.k.a. Dasanu) always gave me a run for the money, even with his 486/66. Muahaha!

I still didnt have any sort of internet access but that was ok because my friends and I found a way to webbrowse for free via the public library. The library had a dial-up system where you could check out what sort of books they had on their network without having to actually goto the library. Yeah right. We found a better solution. By adding a hypertext address or any sort of address (Telnet, FTP), we could connect to anything in the world, too bad it was all standard 80 char text format, but what graphics were on the net then???. I even had a couple of stories about the library computer messing up and giving me full root access, yay. This was sort an impratical solution to the internet problem, the only real use was playing online MUDs, this became an exclusive use. All of my friends and I played MUDs via the library network for at least 2 years, and no one was the wiser!

I never stopped with the BBS stuff though, as a matter of fact in my last year of junior high, I even started my own with sweet ANSI art from groups like ACiD and iCE, anyone remember these guys? Remember how cool you were if you actually knew that those names stood for!? 31337 all the way! Haha, anyway. My BBS was called "Phantasmic Darkness" it used a freeware host system called Renegade, forget that Wildcat software, it was about Renegade! I enjoyed moderate success for a year or so, but that got old and so did all the BBS when my county was finally overrun by real internet providers and all the BBS closed down one by one. Too bad, so sad.

I fianlly did get on the internet and so did my friends, one by one, except my best friend Casey who decided that the library was all he needed. Haha! Anyway, I stuck with the MUDs for a little while and even made my first webpage which can still be seen here. This basically carried me though High School. One friend of mine and I were on this gaming network called Kali back in 97 and we played Warcraft II on there constantly and even managed to rank in the top 100 of thousands, I think he was 18th and I was 84th. Anyway, with easy internet access I frequently used things like IRC, more MUDS, ICQ had just started back then and it was the top messager service at the time. I still have my old number even though I dont use it. 1496102!

Portable Power

For my birthday, my parents bought me a laptop! This was 1999 and 4 months before I graduated. Finally! I was really lucky that my dad was able to get me all these computers, I probably wouldnt be where I am now if he didnt! This new laptop was a Pentium II, 366. I quickly transferred all my things from my desktop so basicly I still had all the things Ive had since I had my 386. I have fun going through it all from time to time. Unfortuantly, the entertainment of computers started to slow down because of my job after I graduated. I had to travel a lot and I found myself where I live today. In Tokyo! Computers are a big part of what I do so working with them has become a bit of a chore, but I still have some time to play around. Thats why this page is here!

I just recently supplemented my laptop with an expensive desktop in the multiple GHz range with gigs of RAM, so I can continue to enjoy that gaming goodness! See the other pages in this section for more details!