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As luck would have it, a young boy was around when his father was working on the computer. He must have been around 12 or 13. His father got to work on the computer because he was treasurer. The boy was jealous, a toy! A toy with lights and whirring sounds and computer sophistication, similar to the Apple computers that he had known so well from school. The boy wanted to touch the computer, but knew better. Sort of. The boy touched it once when his father was away and the office was open. He started up the fancy computer and looked as it powered up. He was very impressed. He looked through the manuals. He tried to run some software He marveled at this wonder of technology. Fast forward to 2002. The same boy and a friend of his had gone to a town quite far from the church to have some Chinese food and catch up with each others' lives. Now being grown up, the boy still had a great liking for old computer toys and things. Being bored, the two friends went to the local Goodwill to look around and see what there was. Back in the corner on a table was a small computer system, quite old. It didn't have much with it, just the computer, a monitor, and a keyboard. However, the boy didn't have this type of computer in his collection yet, so he went to the local ATM and got some cash, came back, and bought the computer. Bring this computer home, it sat in the corner for some time, preempted by some other computer hardware, for the boy had a large collection. One night, being quite productive, the boy decided to boot up this $10 computer and see what was on it. The boy knew very little of what he would find hidden in the secrets of the hard drive of this computer. For the new, fancy computer that the church had purchased and the little boy had marveled over so long ago had served its time, and had been replaced. It went to a number of other people, the files left on its hard drive a testament to the movement of the computer. And eventually, the computer came to be donated to a Goodwill and put up for sale. The boy, Nathan Pralle, found that the computer he had admired so long ago was sitting before him. Indeed, the very first PC he had ever touched, the one at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hampton, IA, and one which had contributed to his becoming a computer programmer, was now sitting on the floor of his very living room, about to become part of his computer collection. An IBM PS/2 Model 30. And now you know the rest of the story. |
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