The Joy of a First Computer

Sooner or later, I’m going to give away my age. It will probably be in this post, but I won’t give it to you explicitly. You’ll have to work for it. Anyway, does anyone aside from me remember their first computer? I remember my first computer fondly. I remember walking down the stairs of my house into my family’s wood paneled, shag carpeted, basement. I remember the sight of a salesman (or was he a technician?) proudly presenting a detailed image of a mountain lion on a strange-looking box thing. Was it a television? No, there wasn’t a remote and you couldn’t change the channel. Was it a canvas? No, it was pixelated and flashing. Was it a new kind of radio? Possibly, but who had ever heard of a radio with a television screen built into it? If you haven’t already guessed, this was the first time I had seen a computer. And I was mystified. After a while, the computer migrated upstairs and was placed in an empty room, near my brother’s bedroom and family bathroom on the north side of my house. It was placed on the floor. I soon discovered that this machine had something to offer outside animal pictures, videogames. So, I played. The one game I remember playing for hours and hours was a game called Mahjong (I don’t think the computer had any other games installed, no Internet either). I’d lay on the shag carpeting (seriously, it was all over my house, my house never left the 70’s until the early 2000’s) and play until my elbows were sufficiently carpet-burned.

Today, I wish I had done more than play games on the computer, but my interest in computing didn’t really spark into I was in my early 20’s.

I’ve searched long and hard for the exact model of the computer I so fondly remember. I can only go by its brand and by my memory of what it looked like. I think I’ve discovered the model.

I think the computer in the image above was the computer of my youth. According the image description, this is the Packard Bell Synera series. I can’t find much on this model when performing a Google search. Perhaps this isn’t the computer of my youth. Perhaps I’ll post an advertisement on Craigslist: “Wanted, memories of old computer.” I’m sure someone will respond, it is Craigslist after all.

The particular computer model doesn’t matter (though, I’d still like to know what that damn model is for certain). What matters is the feelings and memories my first computer gave me. As I mentioned, my love of computing, and technology in general, didn’t really sprout until I was in my early 20’s. However, it was with this computer, my first computer, that the seeds of this love were planted. Everything has its origins, and my love’s origin was embedded in that ancient machine.