Grew up on Mac (Chuck Yeager game anyone?).
DOS & Win3.1 later. QBasic for first language. Later VB, ew.
Linux sporadically throughout.
Use Linux largely for side projects but unfortunately all my jobs have me stuck on Windows during the day.
Chuck Yeager’s air combat? I played that on PC
My elementary school had those chunky, colorful iMac G3s that I played hella coolmathgames on. At home we had an old Compaq desktop with Windows 2000 (later XP).
I never learned anything useful except general computer literacy but I sure do miss those days.
My first memory with a computer was playing (more like trying to play) Microsoft flight simulator 1.0 on a Macintosh when I was around 8-9. The thing that looks like that:
I only started using Linux when installed dual boot Ubuntu on the family computer around 14-15.
My first MS flight simulator was 4, the graphics were similar, but in VGA
My first game was probably 1944 or moon buggy
Wow that is awesome! I have big nostalgia for the early B&W Macs as well, having played on a Mac Classic my uncle had when I was a kid. He actually gave me that computer years ago and it’s still in my basement collecting dust. I powered it up a few years ago and it still worked but then promptly powered it down and put it away. I need to go through it and recap it. Hopefully there aren’t any disastrous leaks.
My dad had this flight sim on his old PC! That internal speaker and the BW graphics… another one of those games was the keyboard destroyer decathlon.
Those beautiful graphics. That dithering though!
When I was 13 I installed Linux in Virtualbox on a Mac because for some reason thought dual booting would be harder, we did not have any non-apple devices in the house, I do not recommend, the performance was terrible (I probably had something set up wrong because it was really way worse than you would expect)
I have ended up on Windows with a Linux laptop for traveling, but will probably switch to Linux as soon as either:
- I get a new VR headset
- Monado gets decent controller tracking support
- It’s 2026 and Windows with WMR support has stopped getting security updates
Then I will have crossed the whole mac->windows->linux pipeline.
I bought Red Hat Linux in a store from my allowance when I was 11 or 12. We had no internet at home back then.
Same, though I think I also picked up SUSE and slackware around the same time
I’ve learned C++ when I was 10. Should I have myself checked?
Only if you have trouble functioning. The only reason for diagnosis is access to care.
But, yeah, prior odds are significant ;)
according to the US gov, C and C++ pose a threat to national security because they are a “memory unsafe” language. I hope you can recover from all the pain and memory leaks you had to endure by transitioning to Rust. /s
Nah, you already know the problem, you just need to self medicate.
No point, c++ already contaminated you. Better than getting java in you early, but both have their own expression of mental illness. I think both are better than C, which reduces all words to 1-3 characters as if intellisense doesn’t exist.
which reduces all words to 1-3 characters as if intellisense doesn’t exist.
That’s assembley
When I was probably like 10 or 11 or something I started learning JavaScript because I thought it was the language Minecraft was written in (It’s actually Java)
i only knew HTML and CGI scripts :(
it’s not going to cause any additional harm:)))
Um. VAX cluster?
I started with System 7 on the Mac and because of that I had to quickly learn ResEdit and hex editing. Ironically this made me better later in life with windows and Linux, that shit is a breeze in comparison.
Also HyperCard fucking slapped
I used ResEdit to fix an issue with my school’s email system.
Someone used a Hypercard stack I made to “break” a computer, It got me banned from the school computers. Same school even.
Oh my god I forgot about hypercard…wowww. Memories.
The AOL amateur HyperCard game scene was like Newgrounds before flash. I wish the world was still that simple sometimes. Or, at least, that fun.
You and me both.
But did the world get less simple/fun or did we just become more aware?
Unsure.
Damn, newgrounds, all the nostalgia in this thread.
The weird thing is that the UNIX core of MacOS would lend itself really well to tinkering. It’s a shame that Apple lobotomizes all the hardware they sell with locked down firmware…
It’s why I much prefer MacOS over Windows. The command line makes sense. The file and folder structure makes sense. The defaults can be a little bit weird but a little configuration can help me feel right at home.
Ironically, I found macOS to be a lot more technical than Windows. It’s how I got my start with Linux. At least changing the default browser changes the default browser. I’ll be using macOS and Linux side by side.
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Seems like one of those bell curve memes with macOS on the left and right and windows in the center
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you
As an Old, I started with an Apple ][ and learned BASIC. We did get the classic B&W Macintosh computers when I was 12-13.
I started on a Pr1me 550 type II learning BASIC myself. Apple ][s came out about 4 years later. Then I used them. Windows SA now.
My youth was at least partly misspent hacking z80 assembler on an Amstrad CPC664. Not as many regrets as one might assume. I miss when (8-bit) assembler was simple enough to hand-code without playing “surf the reference manual”.
I learned basic on an old trash 80 from radio shack in the late 70’s. I really miss mucking around with it.
Edit: Now I use Linux.
Yep, this study would have to divide things up by age. As a fellow member of the Oregon Trail generation, all my early computers were also Apple ][ and b&w macs. But then eventually by young adulthood it all turned into PCs.
I enjoyed a stint with Solaris in college (that’s SUN Solaris thankyouverymuch) which I consider my true intro to Linux/posix/whatever-ix.
Children use smartphones way more than “PC” computers today.
I installed my first Linux distro in my country’s equivalent of high school, probably 17 years old or so. It was just Ubuntu. 🤷♂️ Not very difficult. Just pop in the CD/USB and follow the installation wizard.
At risk of going off topic, I don’t like Twitter posts like this:
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Both users ‘verified,’ essentially paying for more engagement, but with no actual “verification” like community mods tagging users.
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In your face engagement metrics all over the posts, as if that’s all that matters. Not even a user “poll” like Lemmy/Reddit or Mastadon/Facebook.
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Hiding most replies other than the most algorithmically engaging ones.
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Posted as a screenshot, unfortunately necessary as they essentially broke Nitter and it’s nigh unusable unless logged in.
I don’t like that the Twitter format is kinda the center of the social media universe, and seemingly staying that way now that we basically voted to back it with the US govt.
Move back to Tumblr
You joke (maybe), but Tumblr’s sharing mechanics are relatively healthy.
I don’t joke c:
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Personally, I guess that you learn more the more issues you have. MacOS is a more closed down ecosystem compared to Windows, malware is less popular and as hardware comes usually bundled with the OS, you shouldn’t encounter as many driver or hardware issues in general.
As a kid I had so much trouble with incompatible software, viruses, adware, drivers, broken hardware etc. And as I had noone to ask, it tought me a lot about the fundamentals of IT and how to research such issues myself.
Counterpoint, I grew up at a time when Mac’s still couldn’t do much outside of what apple specifically developed for them, so I learned a ton about emulation and virtual machines and such to play games or use Photoshop. I guess that supports your hypothesis, I can rock Unix command line stuff and containers like a pro, but hate figuring out drivers
And then there’s 90s Linux because your parents got a used computer with a friend that came with only that and they didn’t want to spend money buying windows 😢 it’s like learning to swim by being yeeted into the ocean, with a couple sharks hanging around.
At least 80s kids got assembly.
Linux had always been good - put together a new computer, move the OS from the old one, put Linux on the old one…
Find Linux is so much fun, dual boot the new machine on Linux, only keep windows for games
My audio collection from then is all .ogg files
Debian didn’t have a stable release until 1996… Even Slackware didn’t shape up nicely until around 98 from what I remember. SLS gave it a GUI but wasn’t well maintained. Linux wasn’t really “good” until early 2000s at the very least.
I just wanted to play Space Cadet Pinball or Commander Keen as a kid, not compile my programs.
You’re clearly talking about modern Linux.
I don’t think I had budget to buy my own computers until '99, and that’s when I first played with Linux
Yes, I completely see that. This is not a black or white question. You can use Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS… and learn close to nothing or you can geek around hour after hour to expand the boundaries of your device.
I would just assume, that you learn less if everything you want to do, works out of the box. And ‘working out of the box’ a typical selling point of the Apple ecosystem. Which of course doesn’t mean that you can’t have a steep learning curve. Your use cases obviously weren’t delivered out of the box, so you had to get creative as well.
I had a jailbroken iPod Touch with a shell on it and spend hours and days overcoming system boundaries just out of spite. I also remember vividly trying to bring mobile games to a Symbian phone, tweaking around with a HP iPAQ on Windows Mobile, manually typing Midi ringtones with a text editor on a Nokia. :D
