Captain's Log

The date is Aug 10, 2007. My first blog. I've now joined the connected masses that somehow transformed the internet from a geek's domain to what it is today. Don't get me wrong. I make no claims that I helped create the internet. Only Al Gore can make that claim ^_^

The year was 1991. Sophomore year at UCI. I started to dislike math. I was a physics major, but I didn't realize the amount of math that was required. It was fun studying LaPlace, Green's, and residues, but when it was combined with Heisenberg, Hamiltonians, Schrodinger, potential wells... I gave up.



So I went to the computer lab to play video games. At the time, I bought a small game by SSI called Dungeon and Dragons: The Eye of The Beholder. I didn't have a computer in my dorm, so I decided to use the lab's. Little did I know, there were safeguards installed to prevent unacceptable uses. Back then, the lab was using Windows 3.1 + Banyan Vines, and the PC ran completely in memory (RAM disk). Needless to say, the game did not work.

I gave up trying to play video games on PC's, and I started using a WYSE terminal. I was amazed at how small the terminals were, yet many students were using it. These were the die-hard MUD users or CS majors. And for the first time, I saw someone programming in C. I've taken one class of Pascal before and did not find it interesting at all. Maybe because it was for a class and the assignments were just stupid exercises. In any case, I saw this guy typing away like crazy. I asked what he was doing, and he told me he was writing a MUD. That got me started on C. I wanted to be able to do stuff like he did. A few days later, I got a beginner's book on C. The rest is history.