What sparked your interest in technology?
- 6 years ago
Mossberg talks about his interest in technology.
Walt Mossberg; I knew nothing about engineering, but I just was fascinated by it. And I bought a little . . . I think it cost me . . . a $100 computer called the Timex Sinclair around 1981. And I began tinkering with it. Learned a little bit of basic programming, and I just did it at home on the weekends and at night as a hobby. And I began to . . . Then I bought a much more expensive computer in around, I wanna say 1983 or so, something like that. I bought an Apple IIe, and that cost me like thousands of dollars for the computer and the disk drives and all that kind of stuff. It didn't have a hard disk, of course. Eventually I bought a hard disk for it which also was unbelievably expensive. And I think what fascinated me about it was the communications aspects of it, which were very crude in those days; but you could . . . I was very early on what used to be called bulletin boards. You know, like forums that you would . . . you see today on the Web. But they were all text, and they were just local. And then I got on CompuServe. And then I got on AOL. And almost as soon as the Internet became publically available I was on that. So it was my hobby, and that's how I got into it. And you know eventually I came up with the idea to stop writing about serious, global, national security kind of things which I was doing, and to start a new and different kind of technology column.
Recorded on: 9/13/07
Walt Mossberg; I knew nothing about engineering, but I just was fascinated by it. And I bought a little . . . I think it cost me . . . a $100 computer called the Timex Sinclair around 1981. And I began tinkering with it. Learned a little bit of basic programming, and I just did it at home on the weekends and at night as a hobby. And I began to . . . Then I bought a much more expensive computer in around, I wanna say 1983 or so, something like that. I bought an Apple IIe, and that cost me like thousands of dollars for the computer and the disk drives and all that kind of stuff. It didn't have a hard disk, of course. Eventually I bought a hard disk for it which also was unbelievably expensive. And I think what fascinated me about it was the communications aspects of it, which were very crude in those days; but you could . . . I was very early on what used to be called bulletin boards. You know, like forums that you would . . . you see today on the Web. But they were all text, and they were just local. And then I got on CompuServe. And then I got on AOL. And almost as soon as the Internet became publically available I was on that. So it was my hobby, and that's how I got into it. And you know eventually I came up with the idea to stop writing about serious, global, national security kind of things which I was doing, and to start a new and different kind of technology column.
Recorded on: 9/13/07
Walt Mossberg; I knew nothing about engineering, but I just was fascinated by it. And I bought a little . . . I think it cost me . . . a $100 computer called the Timex Sinclair around 1981. And I began tinkering with it. Learned a little bit of basic programming, and I just did it at home on the weekends and at night as a hobby. And I began to . . . Then I bought a much more expensive computer in around, I wanna say 1983 or so, something like that. I bought an Apple IIe, and that cost me like thousands of dollars for the computer and the disk drives and all that kind of stuff. It didn't have a hard disk, of course. Eventually I bought a hard disk for it which also was unbelievably expensive. And I think what fascinated me about it was the communications aspects of it, which were very crude in those days; but you could . . . I was very early on what used to be called bulletin boards. You know, like forums that you would . . . you see today on the Web. But they were all text, and they were just local. And then I got on CompuServe. And then I got on AOL. And almost as soon as the Internet became publically available I was on that. So it was my hobby, and that's how I got into it. And you know eventually I came up with the idea to stop writing about serious, global, national security kind of things which I was doing, and to start a new and different kind of technology column.
Recorded on: 9/13/07
Walt Mossberg; I knew nothing about engineering, but I just was fascinated by it. And I bought a little . . . I think it cost me . . . a $100 computer called the Timex Sinclair around 1981. And I began tinkering with it. Learned a little bit of basic programming, and I just did it at home on the weekends and at night as a hobby. And I began to . . . Then I bought a much more expensive computer in around, I wanna say 1983 or so, something like that. I bought an Apple IIe, and that cost me like thousands of dollars for the computer and the disk drives and all that kind of stuff. It didn't have a hard disk, of course. Eventually I bought a hard disk for it which also was unbelievably expensive. And I think what fascinated me about it was the communications aspects of it, which were very crude in those days; but you could . . . I was very early on what used to be called bulletin boards. You know, like forums that you would . . . you see today on the Web. But they were all text, and they were just local. And then I got on CompuServe. And then I got on AOL. And almost as soon as the Internet became publically available I was on that. So it was my hobby, and that's how I got into it. And you know eventually I came up with the idea to stop writing about serious, global, national security kind of things which I was doing, and to start a new and different kind of technology column.
Recorded on: 9/13/07