Inspired by yesterday’s post I decided to compile a list the memories I’ve had growing up with computers - hopefully they spark others. I tried to keep these in chronological order but I made some mistakes.

• The increase in the number of colors on a monitor and the various *GAs (CGA, EGA, VGA, XVGA)
• Booting of one floppy disk and then running programs off another
• Having both a 3.5 inch and a 5.25 inch floppy disk drives
• Playing Prince of Persia for the first time
• Using Norton Commander rather than the DOS command line
• Shareware and the tons of paper catalogues selling games by mail
• Upgrading to a 486 DX2
• Installing Windows 3.1 from a ton of floppy disks
• The wonderful blue screen of death
• Getting a second phone line in order to use dial up
• Getting AOL instant messenger and my first screenname
• Upgrading to a 56k modem
• Using NetZero as an ISP
• Hosting my first website at Geocities (wish I knew where it was and could dig it up)
• Lycos and AltaVista
• Finally getting a cable modem
• Learning Pascal and C++ in high school
• Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Diablo, Total Annihilation, Shattered Galaxy and LAN parties
• Using Google for the first time
• Signing up for the Gmail beta
• Getting my first smartphone, a Motorola Droid I

Since then, I’ve had a ton of experiences but they feel incremental. I guess being steeped in tech for so long gives that perception.