If you read my previous post, I mentioned a fellow on my Local Linux User Group, Michael Ward.  As I was writing the post, all sorts of memories came flooding back to me.  Michael was the first to help me install Linux on my computer.  I drove over to his place and he installed RedHat for me.  This would have been about 10 years ago so it must have been RedHat version 5 give or take.  He was also the one who taught me how to build computers. 

The first "computer" my family had was a Commodore 64.  I loved that thing - it had the best games.  Our next computer was a 386 and was built with scrap pieces by NAIT students and it had Win3.1.  Somehow my Mom had a connection with someone there and we got it for cheap.  Back then cheap was in the $2000 range if memory serves me correctly. 

The dot matrix printer that we had for that machine was awesome.  It had the paper with the holes on the sides.  What a beast.  I swear that thing worked better than many of today's printers.  

A few years later my Mom purchased a computer from a local shop, Centauri computers in Edmonton.  And a couple years after that is when myself and a friend took the "Build your own computer" course from Michael Ward in the upstairs of that same shop.   I've been building my own computers since then.

Michael has a great website where you can read about the basics of computers and computer related things such as "How to buy a computer", "Multi-booting a computer" and more.

I'm fairly certain there are scores of other computer geeks who can relate to this story.