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I was that kid that took family's electronics apart. I was the kid that could successfully put them back together too.

After high school I started community college with an eye toward drafting but found an opportunity working (with no professional experience) at a very small electronics company called Windsor Electronics, whose claim to fame was the Star Drive - an endless loop cassette tape drive that worked with MIDI instruments. My interest in community college quickly evaporated, I dropped out, and began to work full time as a "Gopher" ("Go for this. Go for that.") Windsor Electronics made a big splash at music/musician trade shows in 1984 and 1985 ... until the US Internal Revenue Service chained the doors shut in December of 1985. I learned a lot in the short 4 months that I worked there. I was building kits for product assembly, modifying tape transports to accept a proprietary tape case, using Autocad, and learning how to spot fishy business dealings by way of instructions such as, "We need you to drive across town to pick up these plotter pins. Here's a personal check. Don't tell them that you work for Windsor." True story.

After a short stint pulling comm cables in ceilings - like pulling twinax cable at Apple in Cupertino (so fun), I was pulling telephone and ethernet coax at Pyramid Technology the day I had my interview there in the manufacturing plant. I was pulling cables in the ceiling, wearing the best clothes that I owned.
I made the cut and started work January 20, 1986 - as employee number 503. I worked at Pyramid for 9 years and 11 months, holding positions in manufacturing, board test, MIS (internal company systems support), field engineering, pre-sales, and ultimately professional services. I traveled all over North America, even making it to England and Norway - before I was 21 years old.

I currently own a lot of vintage computer and video gaming equipment. Amongst the hoard is:
1 x 1985 Pyramid 98xe RISC Supermini UNIX computer (which has an internal Cipher 9-track tape, and 250MB 10" Winchester Fujitsu Eagle drive). Spares include a stand-alone Cipher 9-track tape, and a lot of Fujitsu Eagle and NEC SMD hard disks ranging from 250MB to 1TB in individual sizes.
2 x Osborne 1 personal computers
1 x Apple II w/ monitor and floppies
1 x Commodore 64 w/ floppy drive
- Too many Atari consoles to list off the top of my head (incluing the lovely "Darth Vader" black on black model), 2-switch and the early 3-switch variants.
1 x Original Xbox
1 x NES
1 x Nintendo Virtual Boy (for sale)
1 x Vectrex w/ many game carts (all with original packaging)
I also have a deep love of mechanical things and engineering and have collected hundreds of typewriters from 1886 to the 1980s, with a mixed element of obscure European (mostly German) machines, early US machines (like the Model 2 Hammond, Bennett, Blickensderfer, National 2, Fox, Oliver), especially Remington - from wooden key lever, under-strike machines, to a wide array of Model 2 portable variants, and a lot more. The collection also includes a very rare Elliott FIsher book writer and a Gritzner, which is a mini clone of the Elliott Fisher for typing on drafted plans.