I started using computer when I was 5 year old when I regularly follow my old man to his office. It was somewhere between 1984-1985. His staffs always let me play around with the computers. Oh, before I forget, my dad’s office was using Apple and not IBM compatible PC at that time.

Besides playing games like Karateka, I like to use application like Print Shop to print banners which I’ve created. Sometimes I even got scolded by my father because I keep on asking for extra continuous paper from his staff to print my works!, haha.

When I started my Primary School,

I joined my school’s computer club as early as Primary 1 where I was the youngest member as most of the members are my seniors. There were about 8 computers at that time in the computer room, so sometimes we need to share among ourselves.

Fast forward to the year 1995, I started my Internet days when my old man subscribed to the dial-up service from the local Internet Service Provider (ISP). IRC or Internet Relay Chat was among the first thing that I learned. This chatting application was very popular at that time and I managed to get in touch with my friends in Malaysia and also from overseas.

At first, I was merely chatting, like other youngsters who use IRC. But later on I found out something that is much more exciting and thrilled me – BOT. BOT or short form for Robot is an automated IRC client that runs in a server, enabling it to run 24/7.
And why on earth would I like BOT? Nothing more than to be someone influencial in IRC world. For those who might wondering, I’m an IRCNet user at that time, so there’s no such service as ChanServ or ChanOP. IRCNet works in ‘first come first serve’ basis, in other word, if you’re the first person to open a room or join a room, you be the Channel Operator or Chan OP.

Having a fleet of bots allow me to monitor my channels even without my presence, and without my PC turned on all day long. My favourite bots at that time was Johbot and TNT2 (IRC client script that can be tweaked and follow our instructions). After a while, I was invited to join a group called Unholy Brothers (uB) that was the guardian of #kampung and few other popular channels in IRCNet. I bet you’ll recognise me if you were there at that time.

We merged our bots allowing us to operate even in hardest time which is when the netsplit happened (a term where a network distruption happened in few servers, then some servers will have no chatters or Chan OPs inside – allowing other party to take over your channel). We became one of the dominant clan in IRCNet at that time, we rules and administer channels (besides taking over channels that governed by different clan).

I think this is when my digital world adventure really begun. I ripped the script and tailored it to my needs. My fleet of bots also quite reliable as the Unix Shell accounts that I owned was from different countries; Asia, Europe as well as United States, giving me a peace of mind should network split or time split occurs. Not long after, I fall in love to HTML. That was the first programming language (although it is web publishing language) that I learned. To make it fun, I learned it myself without attending any class or course.

It has been over 11 years since this all happened. I can’t believe that I could go this far. Working in IT industry is something that was never crossed my mind during my schooldays. Being someone that was not in IT line but somehow managed to jump is not an easy thing. But I believe, if you have the passion and willing to learn, nothing is impossible!.

Today, the computer technology develop so fast. Nowadays there’s a lot of computer including some of the most expensive computer that can run very fast. Can you believe that?.