I was 16 or 17 when I got my first computer. It was a Windows 98 non-brand, thrown together computer that my dad probably bought from some computer shop in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. I have no idea where it came from. What I do know is that it had no sound. No sound card. Just Windows 98. Maybe 95? I don’t remember.
It did have the internet. Kind of. Did it even have a 56k modem? Maybe it was the previous generation of modems. Just looked it up and the 56k modem was an upgrade form a 28.8k or 33.6k modem. Doesn’t matter. It was slow.
We didn’t have AOL. I mean, we did for a second. Then my parents decided they didn’t want to pay for it. AOL was amazing. It had AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). The landing page of AOL was chef’s kiss. No. I had NetZero. NetZero was an in internet provider that was free. It was free in a sense that you didn’t have to pay American dollars for the service. But you did pay in screen real estate. There was an ad banner that you couldn’t minimize, you couldn’t close. And you had a limit to the amount of hours you could be online before it asked you to pay. Yeah, there was a pay tier for NetZero.
Anyway. I bring this up because this started me off in my fascination with the internet and computers.
Today I’m still fascinated by computers. 1998-2008-2018-2025. 27 years later. !!! What? Yeah. 27 years later. I’m still fascinated by computers.
I never thought to be a part of computers. A part meaning part of the creation or building or creativity that results in computers. Hardware or software. Ok. I take that back a little. I did want to be part of the creativity that results in computers. I just didn’t know how to begin, and I didn’t have the trust in myself that I was even capable of being part of the creation of computers.
There were always people around me who knew about computers. Who had knowledge of computers. Who I honestly really admired and respected.
There was this kid in my math class in 12th grade who told me that my hodgepodge windows 98 computer didn’t have sound probably because it didn’t have a sound card. When I opened up the computer after that conversation, he seemed to be right. I didn’t see a sound card. There was no 3.5mm headphone jack in the back of the computer. How did he know this? It was something I thought was so cool. And a bit discouraging that I didn’t also know that same bit of information.
Software? Never. I would never have the ability to program. But at least I could create some janky websites on Angelfire. I learned a bit of html just by copying other html I found. The “website” I made back then was very basic. I linked pages together. Inserted some links of my own to other websites I liked. I did the ol href=” or whatever. I used the scanner at my college to upload photos. These simple things were incredible to me. (And photography was another thing that caught my fascination at a young age). It was the coolest. Why I didn’t have the wherewithal to pursue a career in computers at the time? I have no idea. An adult, but barely. I was wandering through my days. I had no idea how to live life. I didn’t know where to go for advice. For encouragement. I think I needed a lot of encouragement, or at least some encouragement. I don’t remember getting any encouragement. Not from my teachers. From my parents a bit, but not in any profound kind of life guidance encouragement. I had friends that were there, and they had a path. But I didn’t. Clueless. Lost.
Yeah, and in a way, I’m still a bit clueless. A bit lost. But I do know now that I’m capable. That I can create. That I can learn. Human ages with two digits and a four as the first digit seem unreal. At least they seem unreal to me, for my age. That’s me. I’m a person who has a two digit age (in years) with a “4” as the first digit. I wish I could have started to learn a programming language at 18. Or 16. Or younger than 42 or whatever age I am. But I can learn a programming language now. I can learn how to manipulate data using M in power query. Or dabble in python. I’m doing it. And I’m doing it in my years that are much older than 18 or 16. Geeze. If my life started at 18, I’d be older than 18. That’s bonkers.
Python. M. Maybe something else next? I’ll work python for now until I have a good handle on it. And really it’s cheating. I use learning apps to help me learn of the main structure of the language, but the only way I can really create anything at all is because of AI. It’s cheating. It’s probably bad code. But it still feels so cool when I see something I (sort of) built. And it has a use. I’m not a programmer. But at least I can pretend.
AI made this for me. Is it trolling me?
"""
Life in dial-up speeds.
1998: 28.8k modem, NetZero, Angelfire HTML copy–paste.
2025: Python, M, AI copilots… still a little clueless, still fascinated.
"""
from dataclasses import dataclass
@dataclass
class LateBloomerDev:
first_computer_year: int
first_real_code_year: int
languages: list[str]
def uptime(self, now=2025):
return now - self.first_computer_year
def add_language(self, lang: str):
self.languages.append(lang)
print(f"🔧 Installed: {lang}")
me = LateBloomerDev(
first_computer_year=1998,
first_real_code_year=2024,
languages=["HTML (view-source edition)"]
)
me.add_language("Python")
me.add_language("M (Power Query)")
me.add_language("Asking AI and pretending that’s normal")
print(f"Uptime: {me.uptime()} years of being fascinated by computers.")
print("Stack:", ", ".join(me.languages))
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