My grandfather showed me the mechanical tide-predicting and Fourier (Euler?) transform computers he had been contracted by the navy to produce.  I was hooked

I was bitten by the bug as a child in Music Class of all places. The music room normally contained triangles, recorders and drums.

One day I went in there and the school had got its first computer, a BBC model B.

Nobody knew anything about the workings of the computer and I asked if I could play with it as a reward for doing a task.

I was told I could and grabbed the user guide and started to learn.

Within a few minutes I had it displaying my name

10 PRINT "Greg";
20 GOTO 10

A few minutes after that I had it printing my name in colour

10 MODE 5
20 COLOR RND(30)
30 PRINT "Greg ";
40 GOTO 20

After that, the sky was the limit. I had a device that I could tell it what I wanted and it would do it. I rapidly got into Turtle Graphics (the BBC version of LOGO) and was sending a robot around the floor.

To me, a child that had never been able to cope with an unstructured world I was suddenly in a place where I made the rules, and I could retreat whenever the real world became too noisy for me.

I was an undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome child and finally I found the universe where I fit in. A place where teachers and students alike would come to me for help and advice. Some people call it cyberspace. I call it home.

Hey everyone,

For me, my Uncle was a Merchant Marine Radio Officer who used to come visit when he was on leave bringing with him robots from Japan and drums from India or other such items from around the world. I was in awe of him and this stayed with me through my high school years where I always told the career counsellor that I wanted to to be a radio officer and see the world.

At around the same time at High School, my father became interested in HAM radio and as he is blind, I was asked to help him to the evening classes where I decided (after getting approval from the Head Teacher at my school) to also learn all about Radio and Electronics and Morse Code at the ripe old age of 13.

By the time I left high school and entered college to Study Marine Electrical and Electronic Engineering, I already had a pretty good understanding of it and knew Morse code to around 13 or 14 WPM. My college years were a lot of fun (the fittest I'd ever been) and I graduated with my electronics certificate and an MRGC (Maritime Radiocommunications General Certificate) which mean I could serve on a ship as a Radio Officer.

By this time, though, Radio Officers were being phased out in favour of the Global Mobile Satellite Communication system but Cruise Company's still needed them. So, my first job as a Radio Officer was onboard a 500 passenger cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean. 

I spent the next 15 years sailing around Alaska, Eastern US, the Caribbean and Europe. I even worked with my Uncle on a more than a few occasions.

Nowadays, I do less radio and more computer (web development) work but still enjoy laughing at the 'morse' code in movies.

o/

I'm passionate about technology since I was 8, and my father bought the first personal computer with Windows 95. I can remember again the wallpaper of that computer, that was this!!!: . Since that day my parents didn't know why that little boy that has never seen a computer before was so able to use it and to discover new features everyday. After that i discovered that my real passion was computer science and electronics. I've studied computer science in every level of my studies, and now i'm finishing my Master Degree in Computer and Automation Engineering. I've found my passion for the electronic when the first Apple iPhone 3 comes out. My family isn't rich and i hadn't the money to buy an iPhone. Then i bought one of it used and with some hardware problem from the UK for about 25€ (the seller said that it was unusable and for spare parts), and when it arrived, i've disassembled it, repaired and then with my passion i've obtained the phone that i have always dreamed. Since those years i've acquired many knowledges about communication, electronic, automation, software and sure, i've not finish! I'm sure that i've made the correct choise for my studies and for my career, and i always love to invite youngest people to explore this fantastic field.

I've always liked building things, but in college I chose to major in Theatre. Theatre, besides stagecraft, is largely a field that eschews tech. Well, that was the case back when I was in school. Anyway, the computer programming classes required calculus, and so I assumed it wasn't for me.

Years later a friend of mine from Theatre school came to visit and talked about how he was now a software engineer. My theatre career wasn't exactly all I had hoped it to be, so He said I should learn about software. I said, doesn't that require calculus and stuff? He said, no, all it requires is the ability to learn a few simple rules and then to go and play with them. Well, I thought, we're practically the same person. If he can do it, than so can I.

As I learned, I discovered that software really was for me. It was marvelously expressive, and very very human, all things coming from a story-teller's background I had assumed were untrue. I was wrong. And I was hooked.

I was about 9 or 10 when my older brother enrolled in the Electronics Engineering Technologist program at college. Once he started the college decided to start a Computer Engineering Technology program and he switched programs.

When he got through the theory classes and progressed into the practical classes, he ran into a bit of a snag. He's colour blind. I'm not. He had trouble reading colour codes on resistors and organising wires by colour. So, I helped him. But when I was done sorting resistors and wires, I watched what he was doing. I asked questions. I learned and I got interested.

I knew right away that I wanted to go through the same program. I did.

I've stayed closer to the technical side of things than he did, but my career is in sales (with technical products and services). However, I am always tinkering and doing "techie" things. I'm also the family I.T. depatment - even the brother that started it all.

As of this time I am 18 years old. I had been ispired by electronics and technology my very early years, because of the fact that my father runs a local business of repairing electrical devices. Because of that, we have a lot of electronic scrap lying around. Most of people would see this as junk but this was and still is quite a big source of required materials for my projects. With my mind focused on repurposment of old stuff, i was always trying to build stuff on budget. So came my first project: my cnc machine.

It was inspired after seing manufacturing exhibition in Munich museum of technology. I was at the age of 14. With a lot of help of my father we gathered materials from nearby scrap yards, and in few months we had a basic cnc built on proffessional linear guides and ball bearing screws. At that time it wasnt so powerful as it was running a very weak engraver. But as time passed it has evolved in a very capable piece of machinery. By now you may be wondering where the inspiration comes in and let me tell you,

As i have previously mentioned i am quite young. With 18 years of existence i have no experience and knowledge that could be compared to any full time software or electronics developer. Most people use that as an excuse, i don't, i think there are lot of well funded research and development institutions filled to the brim of scientists, but this shouldn't stop me from having a hobby of inventing something. So with most of my projects i try to spread my idea, to send a message that trying is a lot better than not trying at all. Even when projects fail they give us something that we cant buy, that is knowledge from praxis. As it may seem useless from the first glance, it is the most usefull thing, because you never know where or when you will try to do something simmilar and by that point you will know where are the critical points.

To conclude, never give up before even trying. Give an idea a good thought, see if it is possible, if its achievable, and don't search for excuses, that there is someone smarter, better or whatever. Just try and learn, don't repeat the mistakes that you did before, share failures and successes with people because you never know whether someone might find you interesting and as always be creative as human mind has no boundaries. By doing this you will sooner or later find success.

Best regards to everyone, JP

In my youth, we had arcades and bowling alleys to play games slightly better than the Atari home gaming system. The VIC-20 home computer system was the predecessor to the Commodore-64. Growing-up during a time before wireless phones and graphics better than the Atari, I really enjoyed the text-based adventure games. To this day, I can recall images in my mind of what I imagined while reading the descriptions of the environments I got to explore... years later when I was in college, I made a computer-controlled disco light controller to provide a variety of lighting effects in my living room. (Don’t judge me too harshly, it was fun!) I used telephone cord as the connectors and rough cut-out plastic project boxes, with spaces for outlets I had soldered to relays.  Since that time I have worn many different hats.

Today, it’s much more about enjoying the process of creating automation that helps people.  See Instructables

I am still very much a proponent of being hands-on with your garden, as I believe it is not possible to have continued success without knowing and checking your plants yourself. But I wasn’t satisfied with having to worry about when to turn on fans and heaters, pumps, lights, and humidifiers. You know, all that irritating stuff. By combining my strong interests in electronics and gardening with hydroponics, I gradually developed an automated system capable of maintaining both my indoor and outdoor garden using microcontrollers, sensors, and wireless controlled outlets. And the hydroMazing was born!

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corypotter

My first experience with electronics was when I started playing with my older brother's electronics educations kits that my parents got via mail-order.  I was amazed at what I could do with what looked like a bucket full of junk.  Lights, sound, motion...  I ended up falling in love with computers when they came to the home (Commodore 64 was my first) and I am a Unix SysAdmin now. 

I tinkered with electronics through the years and got back into it with earnest when the Raspberry Pi made crossing the boundary between computers and the real world so easy.  I have now built the start of a home automation system using Raspberry Pi computers as the primary interface between the physical world and cyberspace.

yes they contained "the smoke" but you rarely saw it escape, the only clue was the darkness.