[mrmattyboy]

I completely get this - got my first "server" at 11 and a ex-dc "real" server at 13 from ebay after I got my first job.

Really glad people are still doing this! (I learned a lot from getting £5 PCs from the local dump, which now don't sell electronics and now "retro" PCs are becoming more and more expensive - I wasn't sure if this ability for kids to buy a cheap PC and tinker (which may or may not help lead to feeling comfortable moving on to running their own servers etc.)

[twbarr]

My first real "server hardware" was a Sparcstation 5 I bought under a bridge at the Dallas first Saturday swap meet. I was maybe... 15? Before that, it was Linux on whatever commodity PC my dad had passed down to me. Running Linux on that Microchannel-based PS/2 was a bitch and a half for a 5th grader.

I had _absolutely_ no idea what I was doing, but I feel like my general comfort with diving into things where I still have no idea what I'm doing started then and there.