Note #2 — How It All Started

I think my first contact with a computer happened sometime around 1992 or 1993. If my memory is not doing what old memories do best and making things up, it was on one of my uncle Dirceu’s glorious PCs.

I thought Uncle Dirceu was the coolest person alive: a proper old-school IT guy, almost certainly the kind of man who either loved BBSs or looked like he should have. And it was through him that I had my first real digital adventure, playing the legendary Prince of Persia. That moment, standing in front of that screen, felt like being born a second time. I was completely hooked — excited, curious, and unable to think about anything else for days except that magical machine.

There is a photo from 1995 of my cousin and me standing next to a computer at one of my uncles’ houses, and it captures that whole era perfectly: back then, the machine still felt less like an appliance and more like some kind of mystical artifact.

My cousin and I next to a computer at my uncle’s house in 1995.

I was already a naturally curious kid. My parents were constantly scolding me because I spent my time opening up electronics, taking everything apart just to see how it worked. I usually had no idea what I was looking at, but that never stopped me from staring at each piece like I was on the verge of discovering electricity itself.

But my closest day-to-day contact came through one of my aunts’ 486 machines: Windows 3.1, and an entire universe to explore. I had the time of my life opening Paint and bravely confronting Minesweeper, which was a bold move for a child of about five whose tactical thinking mostly consisted of clicking things and hoping for the best.

That was the kind of machine that completely occupied my imagination back then.

Going to my uncle’s house was practically a matter of family negotiation, because I wanted to go no matter what. Not to be social, obviously, but to continue producing my terrible little Paint masterpieces as if the future of digital art depended on me.

I think that was the beginning of my story with computers: an early encounter with their weird little wonders, and a fascination that, for some reason, never really let go.