My introduction to the world of computers

It all started when I was very little, when I tagged along with my mother to the office of Mani Tatha. I don’t quiet remember whether we visited on our way back from a movie or a trip to Pondy bazaar, mostly because my first encounter with this awesome device overshadowed other events of the day. I was a kid, too tiny, demanding attention, always, every time, everywhere, I guess kids are built like that. I thought it was kind enough of my mom and Mani tatha to introduce me to a device called the computer, so that I could entertain myself while they indulged in serious, boring and incessant conversation. Before I saw it, to me, the computer was obviously adult stuff, as only adults went to offices with computers and only highly senior students in my school were allowed to use them. This computer which sat in front of me was however different, it had games. I immediately came to the conclusion that it was a recreational object. It all fit in perfectly, it had the same features of a television which was another recreational object.

While we kids played with seesaws, monkey cages, giant slides, merry-go-rounds in the sand, these seniors who obviously must have grown out of childish games would sit in front of computers and play games. While I was computing the odds of whether my assessment was correct or not, Mani tatha had inserted a rectangular object which looked similar to a bread but much thinner, much harder, much darker, with a couple of tiny holes and irregular metallic surfaces, called the floppy disk. The black screen on the monitor came to life displaying weird alphabets and symbols in white. I much later learnt that it was a command prompt which could be used for traversing and accessing files and directories stored in a computer. But at that point of time, although it looked boring, I assumed that this highly regarded device should have a very good purpose, or many people wouldn’t use it. A program loaded and in bold yellow letters and it read PACMAN. It was about a yellow, moon shaped hero, escaping the clutches of ghost shaped villains. Although all this was comprehended through simple RGB 8 bit colored DOS screen, it seemed interesting enough to play eating up tiny white dots on the screen whist being chased by villains and eating fruits which made this pacman powerful enough to change the tide and chase the villains, I paid little attention to the vast keyboard in front of me through which I commanded this pacman to my whims. The keyboard as they called it, had all the alphabets and numbers along with strange symbols out of which I could easily spot the arithmetic operators and a bunch of other keys with words and unfinished words like alt, ctrl, esc and enter. My usage however was limited to the direction keys which made the pacman move in the 2 dimensional screen, wherever I wanted him to go. I never really remembered how long I played with this pacman, nor was I scared that my mother wasn’t beside me, giving me her undivided attention. At the end of the session I heard her voice “Its getting late, let us come some other day and you can play it to your heart’s content”. I was sad that I had to leave this computer thing and head home. Mani tatha assured me that whatever I played would still be recorded in the computer and that I could continue to play, right from where I left it. I handed over the controls to him and while he saved my game, he congratulated me that I was brilliant and that I had a sound sense of logic or I could never have played the game successfully. Left to myself, if the computer was any smaller than what it was, I would have asked my mother to formerly place a request that I take it home and be allowed to use it at leisure. But it was not to be, the computer was colossal, and it would be a Herculean feat to carry it all the way home, so I just took in the appreciation and was very happy. I don’t remember when the promised return to the office was, whether it was a week, month or year later, but eventually I was there in front of the computer playing the same game again, but just like in the return of the Jedi, I had grown and was able to handle the computer with ease.