The Device that enliven me!!

About twenty-one years back, in 1990, a Parsee Lady from Mumbai complimented me by saying ‘You simply know how to talk to a computer’. I think she exceeded the limits while assessing me and definitely over estimated my capabilities but one thing is true that you can call me a technology savvy and crazy or better word is tech freaky. People like me sometime are too good for the machines and often too dangerous. Involving with a device for me means break or make. Therefore, I preferred to ignore if approached by someone to look at their machines.

I am very old fashion regarding this theory as for me Job satisfaction is before money and the attitude of mine directed me to this field. It was somewhere in 1985, I saw a real computer, that time it was a petty unknown things to me. While in Singapore, my friend’s nephew having one but I never saw it in healthy condition. My friend was a teacher and one day she told her nephew that she wanted him to get some answer from the computer. For your kind information, internet was not yet in picture at that time. I was wondering for many days that how a machine can answer her queries. Soon I back to India, first thing that I decided to get an instant answer for my queries, that is how I joined a course in Davar’s. After few months and a few programming languages I found my hunger grew with every program I wrote and wanted to know more. I joined a full time course in F.P.H. and believe me or not my class was 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., one good thing was there in FPH that the canteen over there used to provide food for very cheap rate, of course quality wise you cannot expect more. Therefore, I ventured to this world unknowingly and never knew that twenty-five years I am doing same thing, which I done that time means studying hard everyday, and teaching others, that too is very hard.

Before I could finish my Diploma I got a job, first one was part-time and immediately after that I landed in a  full-time job, it was a Parsee concern and we were developing software in COBOL. Even spending time with computer which was the best past-time for me but I never enjoy much my working days with the concern ‘Digital Abacus’. When I was just thinking to leave it, I got the job I was looking for and I stayed there until 1998. I left it because I wanted to return back to Kolkata but I stayed back there for another two years. It was one of my close friends wanted to start a computer setup somewhere in Thane and she wanted my help. So I stayed back to look after it, I still regretted decision later. Finally, June 2000 I returned back to the place where once I born and last eleven years I am running my own establishment mainly meant for BPO job. It is now turned to a training center and I am to the teaching.

However, these twenty-five years journey was very exciting and full of transformation. I like to remember all those processors that I worked with. There were computer that was only worked with Basic programming. Then came the big ‘O’, I mean operating system and all we needed was a 5 ¼ floppy disk to start and to store. In 1988, we got a machine with 286 processor, hard to believe but true that we had our first hard disk, capacity was six-forty megabyte. Until 1994 we used some of its modified versions like 386 and 486. Then finally Pentiums arrived and also Windows operating system (Windows 95).

This relentless upgrading of hardware was amazing but it was painful too. With keeping competition with new hardware in the market software companies too never failed to produce varieties of new software, be it application software or programming languages. Keeping pace with the change was stimulating, painful and miserable. It was too hard for the people like us, as I always explored with all sort of software. At the end of the day, I am not complaining and very much satisfied with my strive yet I am sad, I know how much effort I had given to learn COBOL, Fortran, Pascal etc. but today these are worthless piece of knowledge because those are  outdated.

!!!The computer, I am living in it, with it and simply loving it.!!!