How do computers help me in life? How have computers had a positive impact in my life? Why am I so good on computers? Read on in this exciting blog post to find out why computers and I get along so well. 🖥

My first experience with a computer

My first experience with being on a computer, was in 1999 when I was just 4 years old. Most four year old children back then usually would not be able to use a computer at that age, but I was able to within just a few days because I learn visually. This computer was a large, gumdrop-shaped computer, known as an iMac G3. 📺 The video clip below is an example of what such a computer looked like. (Ruby edition)

How computers used to look like before LCD technology

This computer video clip was created as a GiF using Blender 4.0, and then was later converted to a video clip, showing what computers used to look like before the advent of LCD technology in the 90s and early 2000s.

An example of what the computer used to look like back in the 90s and early 2000s when I was little. Technology has come a very long way since then, allowing for flat LCD displays and making the CRT obsolete. The blue circle being inserted into the slot in the computer is known as a CD or disc. Discs were prominent in the early 2000s to late 2010s.

Before I got my first computer, I had to take turns on the family PC with my older siblings as a child, which often had to be set on a timer. Later, I got tired of this and I eventually was gifted my own personal iMac for my 16th birthday. This iMac was a 2011 aluminum model, which I eventually upgraded to the 2020 M1 iMac in 2021.

iMacs and MacBooks do not run a Windows operating system as their PC counterparts do – they run macOS, a Unix-based operating system with a graphical user interface. macOS was previously called Mac OS X. ⌨️

How The Sims 2 has helped me learn social etiquette on the computer

The Sims 2 has helped me learn social etiquette through it’s gameplay mechanics. If the Hygiene Need falls to near zero, green and brown vapour particles will start spawning from that Sim. These green particles represent what happens when you need a bath or shower in real life. These particles were a visual representation of bad body odours, and showed the offensive reaction of other people in the game to you.

I eventually learnt through the game that these green and brown particles meant you needed a bath/shower in real life.

The game also taught me what the consequences are if you don’t pay your bills on time or run out of money, as an NPC Sim will come to the player’s house and use a ray to take away a furniture item that is worth a high amount of Simoleons.

How Blender has helped me learn maths & Python on the computer

The software application Blender has also been a huge help in getting me to learn some of the aspects of maths the visual way by scaling and moving around objects and their vertices. Because I learn visually, I was able to create animations within weeks of using Blender by following tutorials. The very first version I used was 2.45a in 2008, and I now use 4.0 as of writing this blog post. 🎬

Most of Blender is written in C++ and Python. The Python scripting language is a popular and powerful, easy to learn language that even a 13-year old can learn. I was able to learn Python through looking up tutorials on how to write my own Python scripts in Blender for use in it’s Game Engine.

Through these tutorials, I was able to learn how to create animations in Blender, and these were mostly of seascapes and waterfalls and a few other nature-based stuff. Today I use Blender for creating animated GiFs and animated clips for my blogs.

UPBGE

These days, I mostly use UPBGE, which is a fork of Blender with the now-removed Game Engine component. Blender had the Game Engine component removed in version 2.80, but revived as UPBGE sometime later, which is a seperate app. UPBGE is a game engine that can be used like Blender as well as a game engine. It’s not as modern as other game engines, but it’s getting there. These days, I mostly use UPBGE for a fun hobby. 🕹

How Letterland helped me to learn language

Letterland was a popular method that helped educate young children in the 90s, but also provided a lot of hilarity. Some scenes of the Letterland video were quite funny, such as when the duck tried to chase a cloud to get back a book, as it is impossible for a cloud to carry a book.

This video was later made into a PC game with a focus on education in which you would learn words and phonetics through certain puzzles and minigames. One such puzzle in this PC game was when you would have to click on red rectangles to find words, and another minigame was to learn how to spell out words, like Wednesday for example. The film and game was quite educative and fun to watch and play for a young child.

Other PC games that helped teach me aspects of life

Other videogames that released in the 90s and early 2000s like Casualty Kid also taught me about the dangers of the world. If you clicked on the floor heater in the game, then this would cause a fire to spread across the level. This was meant to show children why it is dangerous to play with certain electronics like heaters and stoves, and never to play with fire.

Another game called Oceans didn’t just provide ocean-themed minigames, but also taught about ocean safety in some minigames too. Croc 2 used to be such a huge OCD obsession back when I was 4, that it turned into an addiction. I loved the game so much, that I wore the disc out.

Bears was also a PC game that we used to borrow from the library. It allowed me to learn about the seasons by clicking on them to change it, observe it’s effects on characters, and learn about various household objects.

Some educative videogames I used to borrow from the library also helped me learn division and other maths-related topics through food as a representation, which made me hungry.

Princess Lilli Lilac

A Ragdoll cat (Lilli) trying to go to sleep.

Though Lilli has nothing to do with computers, she sometimes sleeps next to me on a chair while I’m on the computer. This helps to keep me company. We have been inseparable since day one, and we love each other very much. 💜

Conclusion

And that wraps up this blog post on how computers have helped me through life, from childhood to where I am now.

I am very grateful for the invention of computers, and how they have helped open up my life, by learning knowledge that I couldn’t learn in a noisy classroom, and enabled me to be homeschooled, and start this blog. Computers have given me a lot of joy, and have enabled me to participate in gaming over the years, a hobby that I love to do. Computers have also helped me participate in society and have helped me feel included, and that this learning is ongoing.

Hope you learned something, and see you on the next blog! 📰

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References

Wikipedia contributors. (2024, June 30). Blender (software). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:14, July 4, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blender_(software)&oldid=1231844428

Wikipedia contributors. (2024, June 28). Computer. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:02, July 4, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Computer&oldid=1231407134