Tearing your radio apart

[xxxlibris]

Chaps, chaps, a question: did any of you when you were tiny do things like pull your radio to pieces to see how it worked, and then rebuild it? Or develops your own computer skills out of sight of school/parents, and learn how to hack? Or similar? And if you did do any of these things, how have they contributed (or not) to you being in the line of

Comments

[steerpikelet]

The person you need to talk to about this is totally cyrus_ii :)

Otters!!

[xxxlibris]

Point him this way! (lure with otters if needs be).

[skibbley]

I often had old radio / hi-fi kit not worth repair or surplus to requirements from the people my dad worked with plus some of my own and enjoyed taking them apart.

[chiller]

Hacking wasn't an option as we didn't have the internet when I was a kid, but I took apart everything I was ever given, from pens to watches to radios to stereos - EVERYTHING - and put it back together from very early on. I still do. It's a compulsion. If there's something I can't take apart (like a toilet roll holder in a friend's house) I still have to figure out HOW I would take it apart, if the question ever arose.

As soon as computers arrived I was doing custom bits and bobs and writing little silly programmes.

And my job? Is all about computers and breaking into data.

I don't think it's a question of whether my childhood activities influenced my career. I think my childhood activities were simply those of a born geek, and if you're a born geek, there is nothing else you can be.

IT IS YOUR DESTINY, LUUUUKE.

[chiller]

Oh, in fairness, I should also point out that my urge to dismantle things to find out how they worked extended to bodies and each week my grandparents would buy me a fish to dissect.

I would've been just as happy as a biologist, but I don't like killing things for the sake of curiosity, so computers it is.

tired brane misread

[plumsbitch]

my urge to dismantle things to find out how they worked extended to bodies as

'urge to dismantle... extended to boobies...'

So sorry.

[xxxlibris]

Your grandparents sound awesome!

[drdoug]

At a formative age I helped a mate solder a ZX81 together from parts. (Actually, his Dad did it with a little bit of help from my mate's older brother, but we observed, and were allowed to play with it later.) My very first hacking experience was changing the text of the message you got when you crashed non-fatally in LUNAR LANDER to be more graphic about the injuries you'd sustained. So I guess I was a script kiddie in 1981, twenty years before it became (in)famous as an activity

[plumsbitch]

Pulled clocks to pieces alot. Mostly got them back together/, a couple of notable occasions where I did not. :) Pens too, and a transistor radio.

Spent lots of time on sister's ZX Spectrum, both playing games, and writing little things in both basic and machine code. Mainly little things that made extra bleepy/parping noises.

Not sure when that all faded really, but it did. How and why are things I have pondered on and off.

Partly coz have compared as this stuff, plus some of the stuff i was reading at the time (Fighting Fantasy, anyone? Tolkien etc) with the many people i know who have grown up into hardcore/prof geek types and there's a great deal of overlap. But somewhere along the line I ended up an artfag/therapyhead type.

[bethanthepurple]

Clocks! Always clocks!

If they were broken I could usually fix them. The same with weighing scales too.

I realised early on that the front covers of things were usually surplus to requirements. As a consequence my bedroom looked fairly steampunk and was likely an electrocution hazard. No computerage til I was well old though.

I don't think it contributed to my line of work (teaching assistant), but it's evident in my current interests & personality. I like maths & taking things apart. I don't mind having an unchallenging job as long as I can indulge in interests in my own time.

[xxxlibris]

Clocks and radios and what else I wonder? I suppose it's the easy to get into/moving parts thing.