The connection was dial-up, through a US Robotics modem, screaming along at a blistering 56 kbps on a very good day. Which is to say: it was slow, noisy, unreliable, and somehow completely magical. Every time that modem started making its demon-summoning noises, it felt like I was plugging my bedroom straight into the future. With a little help from a friend, I learned some IRC and started wandering around that weird digital frontier.

There was just one problem: almost everyone there was a foreigner, and I didn’t speak English. So when ICQ showed up, it felt like destiny. I jumped ship immediately and became completely addicted to the search feature. I started adding people from my city, then nearby cities, and before long, basically half the planet. It was social networking before social networking had figured out how to monetize your soul.

Around that same time, I developed a sudden fascination with what we used to call “hacking stuff.” I dove headfirst into forums, made friends, and started hanging around that whole scene. I got mixed up with trojans and keyloggers, although to be fair, I was much more of a spectator than some criminal mastermind. Most of the time I was consuming what my friends were making, because my programming skills were still very much in the “confidently breaking things I didn’t understand” phase.

At school, ICQ became a full-blown epidemic. All my friends started using it, and Friday nights turned into a ritual: everyone waiting for midnight so we could connect when the phone rates dropped and spend the night online without financially destroying our parents. It was basically a weekly social event, just with more beige computers and worse posture.

But for me, even that started to feel too small. I wanted more. Then, in 1997, I found BRASnet, an amazing IRC network built for Brazilian users. That was the moment I finally felt at home online. I made dozens of friends there, and some of those friendships were so real they’re still part of my life now, in 2026.

Back then, I was probably running some version of Windows—most likely Windows 95 with internet support bolted on—but the change was coming. I just didn’t know it yet. Soon I’d leave that behind, because the next step was unavoidable:

I was going to GNU/Linux.

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.

Do I regret it? Not really. Even if I did send three years’ worth of tutorials, articles, and notes straight into the void.

Honestly, I think this version will be better. More fun, more useful, and probably a lot more productive too. I need things to be simpler, sharper, and more focused, because staying focused for long has never exactly been my natural talent.

Thankfully, I backed up the old database before setting everything on fire, so there’s still a chance I can rescue some of it. We’ll see what survived the blast.