56. First computing experience with a Timex (Sinclair), early 80s. Played with a VIC-20, but became proficient (or so I thought) on the Commodore 64 and 128. Started using an IBM PC in 1986, and after more than 20 years dealing with DOS/Windows, my co-workers consider me a geek. But that says more about their level of expertise than mine! I know better: I am not worthy.

Switched to Linux at home early this year, and I'm still a newbie at it, often clueless.

I like the N800, but I'm often frustrated with it. My favorite pocket computer remains the HP 200-LX, which came closer to putting the power of a desktop computer (for its time) in your pocket than anything else I've seen. I'd go back to the HP in a minute... if I didn't want internet connectivity, media playing, and all the other cool things that have happened since 1994!

46, which puts me in the last and seemingly large bucket. Whats-a-matter with the poll originator - lots of divisions for < 46 but only one for 46 through to death? Come on! ;-)

In keeping with the trend in this thread, my first computer experience was a 4KB RAM (wow) Hewlett Packard something or other with a tape drive; only one keyboard/terminal and it was a single tasking OS so many of us wrote our stunning applications by filling in the locations on a punch card with pencil. The notion that I could walk around with 8GB in my pocket would have stunned me back in the late 1970's.

After taking a break from computers for a while I re-joined them and the industry, writing mailing list software with C 1.0 on DOS 1.0 or 1.1 or something like that; still remember questioning Windows when it first came out; worked on everything from VAX to IBM minis and mainframes at Computer Associates; later on big iron Unix at Data General; and then back again to NT based solutions, and finally, for the last 5 or 6 years, open source Unix/Linux where I remain and plan to.

Having misread the potential for Windows (was more a hate relationship with the instability of Windows than anything) and then underestimated early on the Mosaic Browser (hey, wasn't ftp and gopher good enough!), I wonder if I've misread the curve with the Nokia tablets ;-). Nah... internet in your pocket is a pretty reliable theme to spend some time on.

50 here...

I was a charter member of the DoD (Denizens of Doom). The first on-line motorcycle gang.

I'm 57. In 1969 I used military computers to troubleshoot Pershing Missile Launcher componets. The computer was 20' long 8' high. The tape reels were 2' diamater. Sorry all of that was secret. Now I have to paint you all green.

I'm 52 and have poor eyesight (it is true that your eyes need more light to see fine detail as they get older) so wish for a slightly bigger screen - n800xl? - 6" or so would be nice.
The first real 'computer' (that did something interesting) I ever saw was a Hercules flight simulator which took up several thousand square feet of floor space in about 1970 I think. It could not generate a landscape so there was a giant model landscape mounted vertically over which a camera could traverse. My next excursion into computing was data loggers on super tankers in about 1975... again they needed enormous amounts of air conditioned space.

My dear Lord... I'm not even going to say how old I am, you (near 70 year old) guys would just laugh at me. Let's just say that I'm in the 18 or lower group and that I am undoubtedly the youngest in that one. I'm at the age where most would consider me a script-kiddie, haha let's just say my homepages are http://www.google.com/linux and http://www.donkboy.com/pages/hacker-howto.html

Yeah, I am really surprised by the older crowd and response to this thread! This is great, I love this place. Finally a cool forum with an abundance of older IT folks and techie geeks!

Wow! Great post, very interesting and very cool!! You've been through a lot, and as an old timer from the TRS-80 and C64 days, it's humbling to be in your company.

It's nice to see people like you and all the rest of the guys here so into the technology of the day, while still of course appreciating the technology and memories of the old days.

I'm 24. My parents bought a computer in 1994 but I wasn't really allowed to do anything with it except look at it and type my school reports on it. With those restrictions in place I never did use it much. All that changed when my family finally got Internet access in ~1997. A year later I rounded up all the money I had from birthdays, Christmas, etc up 'til then. I went and bought one of the first sub-$1000 computers. It was a P166MMx with 32MB of EDO-RAM and a 2GB hard drive. (I still find it impressive that 10 years later I have faster hardware in the palm of my hand for less than half the price.)

Anyways, I got fed up with Windows less than 6 months after buying the computer. Windows 95 had constant issues with conflicts between my ISA-PNP soundcard and ISA-PNP modem that I just *couldn't* resolve. I didn't have a CD-RW drive so I ended up buying a RedHat 5.1 CD from someplace for like $2. It took me about a month of dual booting to get my modem working. It took me, maybe another month to get my sound card working. I remember the constant crashiness of Netscape 4.05 and the horrible Windows 95 look-n-feel that the RedHat 5.1 desktop aspired to. I remember the horror that was Gnome 0.54 and the pain of Redhat dependency hell (which I circumvented by compiling everything from source ). I ended up trying Debian, playing around with it for a couple weeks then going back to RedHat because I was used to it. I got so fed up with the RedHat dependency situation that I think I switched back to Debian inside a day and comfort-level be damned. In all the operating systems I've ever used since then (Linux, Unix, *BSD, Windows and Mac) I have never found a package management tool I liked better than apt on Debian/Ubuntu.
Also, fun thread. Good to see a nice off-topic thread that hasn't ended up in flames or rants.

YoDude: DoD? Awesome! I'm going to walk on thin ice so far as my knowledge of other groups go (unsavoury activity won't be appreciated here), but lets just say when I crept onto the internet in the early 90's (I was 12 or 13) a lot of guys from other groups like uh... rzr1911, TRSi, etc. were kickin around in public. That also led to the ANSi scene and groups like ACiD, iCE, and daRk (most of the guys in daRk were local and I still know lots of em).

I've still got a fully configured, fully modded copy of Renegade BBS sitting around on a 3.5" floppy. It's never seen the light of day but it's the slickest looking board I've ever seen. I should set it up telnet sometime.