In 1992 I bought an IBM PS/2 486 SX25.  Wow, what a screamer (for the time).  Being completely computer illiterate, it didn't take me long to crash it.  Since I like to figure things out, I just bought a book, fiddled until it worked again and haven't looked back since. 

My second computer I built myself and I will do it this way from now on.  I dislike all the proprietary stuff that companies add on or gimmicks they pull.  Like having the sound and video on the same card.  You're supposed to be able to disable one or the other when you add an aftermarket card, but we all know that doesn't always work.  I also served as one of the system administrators for my Navy Recruiting District in St. Louis.  With that I learned valuable information on database management and networking.

Now I  build and fix computers, write web pages and have written a couple of programs and databases for the Navy.  Just like I don't profess to be a mechanic in spite of all the work I've done on my cars, I'm not a computer guru or anything, but I haven't had one beat me yet.  I am in the market for upgrading my computer (who isn't).  The computer I'm working on now is a PII 266.  I need to upgrade my video card to play some of the games I want, but I refuse to upgrade that without having an AGP slot to put it in which requires a new motherboard.  A new motherboard needs a newer processor and modern RAM.  So basically I need a new computer...  Of course if I had bought one when I was looking a little while back, the industry would have come out with AGP2 right after.  That is the drawback, you can never stay on the leading edge, the industry moves too quickly.