I was at a dinner this evening and shared a table with two retired IBMers. We began trading technology stories and I bragged about being one of the first to use the IBM PC. My dad bought it for the family back in 1982.
Only after getting home did I realize that this year marks the 30th anniversary of my use of computers. Our first PC lasted a year or two before my brothers and I upgraded it with a new motherboard, doubling its speed to a blazing 8 MHz. A subscription to Computer Shopper magazine and few years of part-time-job salary saved up and we had added our first hard drive, an incredibly fragile 10 MB model. Then it was two truly ahead-of-their-time 19.2 Kbps Fastcomm modems, two phone lines, and we had our own bulletin board system in 1987 (another anniversary at 25 years ago this year) with over 300 users.
Thanks again, Dad, for bootstrapping my career!