The first computer I ever owned was an HP Pavilion 7850 desktop tower that I picked up at a thrift store for $16 at the start of my Junior year of high school in the Fall of 2003.
I distinctly remember booting it up to find that it ran Windows ME, and the previous owner was kind enough to leave all of their files on it for my perusal. At the time, we were one of the few families in my friend group with cable internet, but because we didn’t have a wireless router, the privilege of getting online was reserved for the now-obsolete “Family Computer.”
One Person’s Trash is Another Person’s Education
As a high school (and then eventually college) student, I didn’t have the funds to purchase new computing equipment. What little I acquired over the next few years was from thrift stores, hand-me-downs, and swap meets.
That little Pavilion eventually got online because I found a Linksys WRT54GS router at that same thrift store a few months later for $3.99, and had a friend that was nice enough to donate an old no-name wireless receiver to go with it.
