I Am My Father’s Daughter
A brief history of how my dad got me into computers
MY DAD BOUGHT our first computer in 1991, a clunky IBM Value Point with now-ancient hardware. He bought it for himself, but before he knew it, I was spending more time playing games on it than he was. When my mom wasn’t looking, he let me take over the controls for his games, such as Lemmings, Ark a no id, and the 1991 remake of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. For whatever reason, my dad thought it would be OK to let my four-year-old self play it. Thankfully, I was too young to understand what the game was about, but the part I remember vividly was Larry walking down a dark alleyway to meet a few guys with baseball bats. That did not end well for Larry.
My love for computers and games started early, thanks to my dad. Each time he upgraded to a new computer, I got the old one, and I eventually started taking our older computers apart and putting them back together again just to see if I could do it. By high school, I grew out of my dad’s preference for buying pre-built PCs, and wanted to build my own to play MMOs. Unfortunately, growing hostilities between us meant he wasn’t willing to teach me, but it didn’t prevent me from learning on my own, thanks to the Internet and a few awesome Matrix Online guildmates.
But my dad started the spark, which lead me here. As of writing this, my dad passed away no more than 48 hours ago. While we didn’t have an ideal relationship, the one thing I wanted to show him was at least one article that I wrote about hardware. I wanted to know that he was proud of me. I hope you’re reading this now, Dad. This is for you.