Finally, my first PC!

You might want to read my previous post before this one, because this is a direct follow-up to that post (although the focus is different).

I was really disappointed and heartbroken about being unable to play Half-life anymore. And I knew it wouldn't be right for me to ask my cousin to buy another CD of the same game. To tackle this issue, I began pestering, or rather requesting my parents to buy a PC for me. I told them that a PC would be immensely helpful for my education (although my primary goal at that point was to just play and beat Half-Life). Being educated themselves, my parents didn't need much convincing with respect to the usefulness of a PC. So I was fortunate enough to get a spanking new PC on October 20th 1999. Yeah, I still remember the date!

My PC was rather 'special' compared to those of my cousins and friends, in several ways. The specifications of my cousins' PC was something like a 333Mhz processor, 14-inch monitor, 3GB hard disk and 32 MB RAM, which was more or less similar to the specifications of my friends' PCs too. In contrast, my PC had a 733 Mhz Pentium 3 processor,  64 MB RAM, 20 GB hard disk and a 15-inch monitor (other components like keyboard, mouse, speakers etc. were almost similar). This was considered a high end PC at that time. Now for the 'goodies'. My PC also had a dedicated graphics card (which was unusual in 1999) with 8MB memory, a color printer (the others didn't have a printer) and a 56kbps modem for dial-up internet connection (the actual internet connection was set up after a few days).

The PC made my parents poorer by ₹65,000 but it instantly made me a hero among my friends (due to it being high-end)! As expected, I purchased the original boxed copy of Half-Life within a few days (because playing it was my main objective). It cost me a whopping ₹2000, but the exhilarating game experience was well worth it. Took me around a month to beat it. I did play other games as well. At that point, even though my primary usage of the PC was for gaming, I was careful enough not to let it adversely affect my studies. As expected, I was fascinated by the internet but unlike most adolescents my age, I didn't use it as an an easy gateway to porn (which was a rage among my peers). Instead, I made use of the internet for game-related information and also my school-related work. I'll describe my initial gaming experiences in a different post.

My PC didn't remain 'special' for too long, due to rapid advancements in hardware. After several minor and major upgrades, I had to finally sell my beloved first PC in August 2004, when it became impossible to upgrade beyond a certain point and the PC couldn't run the latest games. But it did serve me well for almost 6 years, with no major repairs.