Introduction to Cyber world - Part I

Back in year 2000, when I had just left my school after SSC & had joined a diploma course, a new trend had arrived. Personal Computers were abuzz then. I had no idea what it was & what it does. For me it was just a small TV with 2 other complementary dabbas (boxes). Later on we saw a tail (mouse) coming forward from one of the dabbas where one of the human hand will always rest & move here n there making some click-click sound. I always found it cute. I always had curiosity to touch it, to sit there, to see what it does, to operate that cute little thing.

Time passed on. By now, I had my hands on personal computers in our college labs. I was all for it I must confess. By entering few keys (“dir” command actually) & pressing enter key made my screen dance & fill with many characters neatly organized on screen. At times screen scrolled automatically so fast, it always amazed me. I was all praise for these 3 boxes which did magic. As I got well versed with PCs, I started hearing cyber cafes, chatting & emailing. K B Virkar dictionary failed to answer these questions. So I planned to pay a visit to “cyber café” on my own.

One (boring) day, just to skip my tough librarian’s brutality, I had taken one thick book from the racks & had buried myself in to it. It happened to be “Complete Reference of Windows 98”. I was pretending to read it and then I happened to see something related to internet (I knew it as a synonym of word cyber). I got stuck there trying to figure out what it is. I asked my senior sitting by (who looked nerdy) about it. Reply was, it’s something which opens web sites from internet (cyber). Bingo! I was so happy with myself to have discovered a thing of my interest, though accidently. I thanked my librarian too. I am sure for the first time in her life somebody would have thanked her.

A friend of mine who happened to share same curiosity, promised me to join me on this voyage. I was happy to have hit 2 birds with 1 stone. Because I would be getting to know what cyber café is and I had somebody to share the monetary burden (college days you know) to visit that place. Cyber cafes then riding on popularity wave charged hefty amount. With me alone, it would have made a huge burn in my pocket. But now, I was happy to have a friend to share expenses on my one side & “Complete reference of Windows 98” on the other. Needless to say, I had already issued it. We decided to go there on coming weekend. I waited for the weekend impatiently.

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