Printed circuit love and brain workout

 
Red robe and big package. You should be afraid, computer.

My first tower back in ‘91. You can see that I was pretty happy. I think I already had the parts so I could start building it. I still had hair but the thing is, I look at kids today and I understand why they don’t have a brain in ebullition: they click, double tap, buy, consume and don’t know shit. Knowledge is everywhere and useless at the same time for them. Everything is as easy as pressing a thumb on glass. You get everything you want like that. But life doesn’t always work this way.

At first I was looking at circuit boards as if they were little boring cities, while my dad would use his legendary screwdriver skills and built PCs. Going from cold printed circuit boards in boxes to weird CGA games I would try on screen, from hardware to software was fantastic. And made me understand three gazillion things. Or not. Anyway, it was magic.

It gave me a sense of patience and thoroughness of action. Understanding problems. Solving issues before they show up was part of the game -IRQ available? what about DMA channel-, thinking ahead was part of the fun “I’m outsmarting this bitch!” and checking things ala airplane -three times- was the routine. Now kids whine and give up because Facebook doesn’t load and they have such a lack of knowledge and patience… I wouldn’t like to be their future offspring.

Today if you want to hook up a kid on computers, don’t buy a tablet. Don’t listen to your kid (I wanted a console like all my friends on that picture, but a computer was great too I guessed). Build a PC with him/her and trust me, he/she’s going to love it, firing up a great game a few hours after opening boxes. He/she will love it when you finish your first Arduino project. He/she might even want to learn more. Maybe program stuff. Maybe manage the house network. Maybe run a small cluster of graphic cards to calculate stuff for the cloud. Possibilities are endless, why stop at Angry Birds and Instagram?

Your kid will not be an annoying brat who can’t sit still unless he’s in front of mind-crushing YouTube videos of stupid cats and that will be a good thing for him, his environment and the future of creativity.

Bam.