Subj : Re: Hi all!
To   : Nightfox
From : Digital Man
Date : Sun Aug 31 2025 01:54 pm

  Re: Re: Hi all!
  By: Nightfox to scarface on Sun Aug 31 2025 11:27 am

 > It seems to me that's the case these days.  When I was growing up, computers
 > still seemed like a relatively new thing, and it seemed that there were more
 > people (like myself) who were curious about how they work.  I like to build
 > my own desktop computers, and I feel like I grew up in a time where a good
 > number of people did that, and know how to fix things that go wrong.  These
 > days, even though a lot of people use smartphones & other computer
 > technology, it seems a lot of people don't really have much idea about how
 > it works or even a curiosity about it.  It seems a bit counter-intuitive.

Same here. My first tech "job" was building and selling computers and LANs. I got bored of that pretty quick, but it was a start. Now when I hear a proud parent brag how their child is so tech-smart because they "built their own computer", it turns out they're just buying gaming PC components from amazon or newegg and assembling them. Sure, they've learned *something* through the process, but they're a long way away from turning that knowledge into a career. When I was building computers, it was still just a lot of assembly work, but you still had to know how to use 'debug.exe' to invoke the expansion ROM firmware of a "Winchester" controller, know how to low-level format a drive, know the differences between MFM and RLL encoding, platters, tracks, cyclinders and clusters and why it might matter for the customer, etc. Chips and cables weren't "keyed" and you had to know where pin-1 was and why it mattered. Nowadays, all those details are abstracted away from the system builder. And the software stack is much higher now than back then, so the chances of one person knowing it all is even less likely, even when they do know enough to have a job in the field. I enjoy blowing the minds of youngsters when I'm able to demystify things and explain why things (in tech) are the way they are. But I also feel bad that they may not really retain the knowledge since they didn't "live it" and that could be a big handicap for the generation(s) taking over.
-- 
                                            digital man (rob)

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #24:
DOS = Disk Operating System (as in PC-DOS and MS-DOS)
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