It has been 14 years since I was first introduced to computers and the introduction was purely by chance. A few days back, as I was browsing through the old stuff I have gathered over the years, I thought why not write about those wonder years that I spent in Lucknow - 1998-2000. Though I spent four years in Lucknow only the last two were worth remembering.
It was a hot afternoon of June 1998 when I saw Gautam leaving Sanjay's house on his Hero Puch bike. He stopped outside my house and we started a conversation on what he is doing and what I am doing these days. That's when he mentioned about a computer diploma course from UPTEC. The diploma was the 'O' Level Diploma by Department of Electronics, Govt. of India. I had no idea what he was talking about. Computers? What do you do with them? Oh Yes, I have seen computers at school and I've done a bit of programming in LOGO and I've also seen the railway clerk booking a ticket but how can you make career in computers. I went to government schools (Kendriya Vidyalaya) for the last four years of my school education. Computers was a subject there but I never got a chance to even touch one. It was all about reading the basics (Input and Output devices, CPU, Storage devices) and taking the exam but computers always fascinated me.
We all were out of the school but nobody had anything in mind about the future. Engineering, Merchant Navy, Bank Job, Railways, Army there were so many different things. I had nothing else to do besides preparing for Army and Bank papers so I asked Gautam to get me a prospectus for this course. The next day he came with a prospectus and I gave him Rs. 50. The prospectus was for one year diploma course at UPTEC that would prepare us to get a 'O' Level Diploma. The prospectus mentioned that UPTEC will provide their own diploma for the course undertaken but the course does not guarantee an 'O' Level Diploma. We were supposed to pass four different national level exams to get the real diploma. The main thing I had in mind was that I'll get a chance to study computers so I filled in the details and submitted the form. An entrance test was held a couple of weeks later and I passed it. The longest and the most enjoyable journey of my life had started as I stepped into this virtual world.
The course covered mainly the fundamentals of computers, batch programming and the 'C' language. The first day I entered the computer lab was the first day I grabbed the mouse in my hand. We were asked to boot the computer. I heard a few beeps and then saw some numbers running the screen. Wow! Computer! felt on top of the world. Everything settled a few minutes later and all I can see was a black screen with a "C:\" and something blinking and blinking and blinking. "What do we do now?" I asked Ashish who was my batch-mate He knew nothing so I kept waiting and looking at other people's screen. It was my first day so I avoided any kind of experiment with it. I thought of typing something in but then changed my mind. "Type win" heard someone saying "and press enter then". I typed in the three magic letters and pressed enter. Windows 3.1 splash appeared on the screen. The next few minutes passed looking and admiring the beauty of things on screen. Changing colours and dimensions and then finally settling for a "Program Manager" window with a few pictures inside it. It was truly an amazing experience for me and I hope for the entire class too. Though some of them were not so amazed probably because they already had a PC at home or computers wasn't something they liked. "Now what?" I asked my teacher. "Grab that mouse and open Paint progam" he replied. I grabbed that funny looking thing and moved it. "Yo, did you see that? when I move that funny thing something even more funny happens... see that small pointer, it moves" excitement grew to a new level. The teacher showed us how to 'click' and 'double-click' using that funny thing in hand and finally I was able to open Microsoft Paint. "OMG this is such a useful piece of machine" I thought to myself. That day I spent the remaining time in the lab to draw the blue-red PEPSI logo with of course my name at the bottom.
The first big thing for me was "MS-DOS Batch Programming". It gave me the first feel of how you can program a computer and make him follow your commands in an ordered way. Do this, then this, if this is that then do that and so on. Thursday and Friday were the only days we were allowed to use the machines, that too for only two hours per day. Two hours were too less for me to develop something so to cut down on the application design time (like I knew what application design meant?), I would write batch program at home in my notebook and dry run them for hours. This was to make sure that the program will run in the first go and to avoid any debugging delays in the two hours session. I made a lot of batch programs. I thought the only programming one could do is the batch programming till I met 'C' and soon realized the power of this new language and started writing all sort of programs from 200 years calendar (found at the back of some notebooks) to personal diaries with its own record management system (obviously I had no experience with databases). Schaum's Programming with C was my first 'C' programming book -- actually my first programming book. I never studied for the 'C' exam but working on these small projects paid off and I got an "A" in the 'C' programming paper of 'O' Level. Programming and computers were now an addition and I enrolled for the advanced level diploma ('A' Level) after clearing 'O' Level.
Browsing Internet was considered a luxury. The shop close to UPTEC would charge Rs. 120 for an hour of browsing. Rs. 120 was big part of my monthly pocket money and so does for my friends. There was this guy who worked in a cyber cafe. He use to sell internet username and passwords for Rs. 50. The passwords belonged to some government offices having a part of their budget set aside for internet but never used it. It was expensive even after getting the passwords because it consumed local calls (Rs. 1.5 or Rs 2 per 3 minutes).
Computers and classes were not the only thing we did during these two years at UPTEC. As a foodie, I and Sarvjeet use to roam around the city looking for good (and cheap) street food. Entering a restaurant was a luxury only to be enjoyed on someone else's expense so we waited for birthdays (of course not ours). The dhaba just in front of UPTEC served great samosa-chole for Rs. 5 per plate. It was perfect for a quick lunch break from our 'A' level classes. When we had a little more time (and money), we use to have biryani which was Rs. 25 per plate that time, so we shared it. It was an amazing biryani with white, green and saffron rice. It was so tasty that we often had to go for "Biryani Part II". "Biryani Part II" was when we had a plate of biryani, went back to the class but could not resist coming back and having the second plate. Then there was Rovers, near GPO in Hazratganj. Rovers was famous for fast foods such as burgers and rolls, mainly the Chicken Kathi Roll and Paneer rolls.
A few months later, someone told me about Visual Basic and how easy it is to design an application using its visual designer. I called up Sarvjeet and we again went to the computer market. I bought a CD with Visual Basic 6.0. It was damn expensive, Rs 150 for a single CD. Visual Basic was a star, I was up and running in no time. It was exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for - Fast, Easy and Powerful so I dived deep into it, often finding myself awake till 3 AM. Calculator, NoteKeeper, Encryptor, I made them all. The real fun was distributing these small applications among friends and getting their WOWs (which actually never happened). A 1.44 MB Floppy Disk was the popular media those day. I remember packing my first VB calculator on it for Sarvjeet and Koshika, they both had PCs at home. Both came back saying that it did not work on their system, some error message was displayed and then took two days to tell me the exact message. A few days of research taught me the basics of Dependencies and this time I used Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard to pack the application. It was a weekly affair to ask close friends to test my programs.
It was a hot afternoon of June 1998 when I saw Gautam leaving Sanjay's house on his Hero Puch bike. He stopped outside my house and we started a conversation on what he is doing and what I am doing these days. That's when he mentioned about a computer diploma course from UPTEC. The diploma was the 'O' Level Diploma by Department of Electronics, Govt. of India. I had no idea what he was talking about. Computers? What do you do with them? Oh Yes, I have seen computers at school and I've done a bit of programming in LOGO and I've also seen the railway clerk booking a ticket but how can you make career in computers. I went to government schools (Kendriya Vidyalaya) for the last four years of my school education. Computers was a subject there but I never got a chance to even touch one. It was all about reading the basics (Input and Output devices, CPU, Storage devices) and taking the exam but computers always fascinated me.
We all were out of the school but nobody had anything in mind about the future. Engineering, Merchant Navy, Bank Job, Railways, Army there were so many different things. I had nothing else to do besides preparing for Army and Bank papers so I asked Gautam to get me a prospectus for this course. The next day he came with a prospectus and I gave him Rs. 50. The prospectus was for one year diploma course at UPTEC that would prepare us to get a 'O' Level Diploma. The prospectus mentioned that UPTEC will provide their own diploma for the course undertaken but the course does not guarantee an 'O' Level Diploma. We were supposed to pass four different national level exams to get the real diploma. The main thing I had in mind was that I'll get a chance to study computers so I filled in the details and submitted the form. An entrance test was held a couple of weeks later and I passed it. The longest and the most enjoyable journey of my life had started as I stepped into this virtual world.
The course covered mainly the fundamentals of computers, batch programming and the 'C' language. The first day I entered the computer lab was the first day I grabbed the mouse in my hand. We were asked to boot the computer. I heard a few beeps and then saw some numbers running the screen. Wow! Computer! felt on top of the world. Everything settled a few minutes later and all I can see was a black screen with a "C:\" and something blinking and blinking and blinking. "What do we do now?" I asked Ashish who was my batch-mate He knew nothing so I kept waiting and looking at other people's screen. It was my first day so I avoided any kind of experiment with it. I thought of typing something in but then changed my mind. "Type win" heard someone saying "and press enter then". I typed in the three magic letters and pressed enter. Windows 3.1 splash appeared on the screen. The next few minutes passed looking and admiring the beauty of things on screen. Changing colours and dimensions and then finally settling for a "Program Manager" window with a few pictures inside it. It was truly an amazing experience for me and I hope for the entire class too. Though some of them were not so amazed probably because they already had a PC at home or computers wasn't something they liked. "Now what?" I asked my teacher. "Grab that mouse and open Paint progam" he replied. I grabbed that funny looking thing and moved it. "Yo, did you see that? when I move that funny thing something even more funny happens... see that small pointer, it moves" excitement grew to a new level. The teacher showed us how to 'click' and 'double-click' using that funny thing in hand and finally I was able to open Microsoft Paint. "OMG this is such a useful piece of machine" I thought to myself. That day I spent the remaining time in the lab to draw the blue-red PEPSI logo with of course my name at the bottom.
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The first big thing for me was "MS-DOS Batch Programming". It gave me the first feel of how you can program a computer and make him follow your commands in an ordered way. Do this, then this, if this is that then do that and so on. Thursday and Friday were the only days we were allowed to use the machines, that too for only two hours per day. Two hours were too less for me to develop something so to cut down on the application design time (like I knew what application design meant?), I would write batch program at home in my notebook and dry run them for hours. This was to make sure that the program will run in the first go and to avoid any debugging delays in the two hours session. I made a lot of batch programs. I thought the only programming one could do is the batch programming till I met 'C' and soon realized the power of this new language and started writing all sort of programs from 200 years calendar (found at the back of some notebooks) to personal diaries with its own record management system (obviously I had no experience with databases). Schaum's Programming with C was my first 'C' programming book -- actually my first programming book. I never studied for the 'C' exam but working on these small projects paid off and I got an "A" in the 'C' programming paper of 'O' Level. Programming and computers were now an addition and I enrolled for the advanced level diploma ('A' Level) after clearing 'O' Level.
I always wondered how people make nice looking Window interfaces with buttons and lists and the colourful backgrounds. The Digit Magazine use to have a dedicated folder in their CD for small applications developed by Indian programmers. It had many interesting application all with nice looking user interfaces. I asked my teacher Mr. Rahul Navneet Singh about it. "Try Clipper or FoxPro, you can create user interface in them" he said. I and Sarvjeet went straight to the computer market that day which was in Hazratganj lane, near Mayfair Cinema (now closed). I got a CD with both Clipper and FoxPro 2.6 (or maybe Visual FoxPro 5). FoxPro turned out be an entertainer and I made a few database projects in it including my 'O' Level project. I remember the login screen I made for a test project, it was inspired by Boris's Hack program in the movie Golden Eye. and I also remember how I saved myself from embarrassment by quickly turning off the computer monitor when this login screen jammed while I was testing it and a neighborhood lady came in at that very moment (Murphy's law I guess -- If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then).
Browsing Internet was considered a luxury. The shop close to UPTEC would charge Rs. 120 for an hour of browsing. Rs. 120 was big part of my monthly pocket money and so does for my friends. There was this guy who worked in a cyber cafe. He use to sell internet username and passwords for Rs. 50. The passwords belonged to some government offices having a part of their budget set aside for internet but never used it. It was expensive even after getting the passwords because it consumed local calls (Rs. 1.5 or Rs 2 per 3 minutes).
Computers and classes were not the only thing we did during these two years at UPTEC. As a foodie, I and Sarvjeet use to roam around the city looking for good (and cheap) street food. Entering a restaurant was a luxury only to be enjoyed on someone else's expense so we waited for birthdays (of course not ours). The dhaba just in front of UPTEC served great samosa-chole for Rs. 5 per plate. It was perfect for a quick lunch break from our 'A' level classes. When we had a little more time (and money), we use to have biryani which was Rs. 25 per plate that time, so we shared it. It was an amazing biryani with white, green and saffron rice. It was so tasty that we often had to go for "Biryani Part II". "Biryani Part II" was when we had a plate of biryani, went back to the class but could not resist coming back and having the second plate. Then there was Rovers, near GPO in Hazratganj. Rovers was famous for fast foods such as burgers and rolls, mainly the Chicken Kathi Roll and Paneer rolls.
A few months later, someone told me about Visual Basic and how easy it is to design an application using its visual designer. I called up Sarvjeet and we again went to the computer market. I bought a CD with Visual Basic 6.0. It was damn expensive, Rs 150 for a single CD. Visual Basic was a star, I was up and running in no time. It was exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for - Fast, Easy and Powerful so I dived deep into it, often finding myself awake till 3 AM. Calculator, NoteKeeper, Encryptor, I made them all. The real fun was distributing these small applications among friends and getting their WOWs (which actually never happened). A 1.44 MB Floppy Disk was the popular media those day. I remember packing my first VB calculator on it for Sarvjeet and Koshika, they both had PCs at home. Both came back saying that it did not work on their system, some error message was displayed and then took two days to tell me the exact message. A few days of research taught me the basics of Dependencies and this time I used Visual Basic Package and Deployment Wizard to pack the application. It was a weekly affair to ask close friends to test my programs.
In my next post (which I hope I'll publish in the next few days), I plan to write about all the small applications I developed during these wonder years. Encryptor, KissMe Java Applet, MS-DOS Explorer, my software cracking experience and some of my hacker friendly web sites which were banned.
(All the images used in the blog belong to their respective owners and are used here for illustration purpose only)
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