Building My First Computer

Wow. I didn't realize it has been almost a year since I have blogged.

Sorry fellow followers (so many...)

Anyway, a lot has happened but I hope to stay on track.

The Story
I had been getting very familiar with how to install and run windows 3.11. Then in 1995, I got the greatest OS ever!! Windows 95. Then came AOL and I learned how to use the internet. I was getting great at it. It felt like it was meant to be.
Back then, there was no Google, there was Alta-Vista or some other search engine I can't remember.
I checked my email maybe once a day, at night.
We only had a certain amount of minutes a month until they came out with unlimited minutes.

Well our computer was starting to get clogged up with stuff since the hard drive was only like 100 MB, ram was like 64MB. So my step-dad and I starting researching computers. Since my step-dad was always looking for the best deal, we found a guy that knew how to build computers for really low prices.

There was a company back then called Cyrix and just came out with the PR 166+ with blew the Pentium's 166 out of the water. This puppy ran at a whopping 166 Mhz. I think this was back in 1996. I was 16 and a junior in high school. My computer now has Dual 2.6 Ghz processors.

Anyway, this guy saw a market potential to assemble computers from different manufacturers and sell them at almost half the price as retail boxed computers. The only problem was he didn't have much knowledge in software. I'm sure he could install Windows 95, but he wasn't sure about conflicts and reformatting properly and blah blah blah.

So my step-dad made him a deal that if he discounted the already low-priced computer, I would help him understand software. My step-dad volunteered me a lot to do things I never agreed too. It wasn't that I couldn't do it, it just would have been nice to be asked. Anyway, NO DRAMA in this blog!

Being the geek I was, I took advantage of it. He showed me motherboards, CPU's, hard drives, ISA cards (before PCI), power supplies and Jumpers. Man, jumpers were a pain back then.
Plug and Play was just getting known and not many manufacturers had implemented it.

So I learned that aspect, built my first computer and then showed the guy how to properly install windows, works, internet, drivers from floppies. We really did click as a team. By the way, this guy was like early 30's and I was an impatient 16 year old. SO when we worked, we got a lot done.

I helped him build about 40 or so, and he gave me money for my efforts.
He went on to create Computer Masters, which I still believe is in Oklahoma City still, but I'm not sure if he still owns the company.

Next up, I think I'll talk about my first car stereo install. I promise it won't be 10 months later though!