So if you are anything like me you sometimes wonder where a person gets the user name that they have in the forums. I have found that sometimes there is an interesting story behind those internet identities.

I will get things started with my story. When I was 12 my dad took his old ford truck off the road because the engine was tired and it needed a paint job. It was a 1970 Ford F-100 with a 390 cid and a 4 speed tranny. We started restoring it together and got it almost done before he died. Of course it had a lot of sentimental value to me, so I got a friend of my dads to help me finish it before I turned 16, and it became my first car.

It was so awesome to drive that thing and know that my dad and I built it together. It was 100 times cooler than any of the fancy cars the other kids in school had, and it was all mine.

Of course being a stupid teenager, I did the bonehead thing and wrecked it when I was racing an 86 Mustang Boss. I was doing pretty good until that corner, and then that tree. I guess it couldn't handle as well as the muscle car.

So that is my story, would anyone else care to share?

 

Mine is a combo of my real name and my telephone area code. I'm also a fan of the famous surf shop also.

 

Well, it all started way back in the early 90s, can't remember exactly what year, 92, or 93 give or take a year. I was about 9 or 10, and got my first modem, a 2400 baud! Installed that thing into my Tandy 1000, and got connected to a BBS, first question it asked me was for my username. Well I thought long and hard about it for about... 2 minutes... and concluded I would use a combination of my name Matt, and my favorite animal, Cats. So MatCat was born! I have used my handle ever since, it is as much a part of me as my real name is.

Man, I miss those days! Before most people even knew what the internet was. I loved the BBS scene so much. I realize that the majority of people on here will have no clue what I am talking about, and that is OK, just know that it was THE thing before the internet caught on.

 

So are you the inspiration for that 80's movie "War Games"? Man that is a blast from the past!

 

That movie was so out of touch from reality it isn't even funny. One of my all time favorite computer movies Hackers, also very unrealistic in the graphics department, but a lot of the lingo they use is fairly real, to some degree anyway.

I honestly don't even know how I got interested in computers!

 

I used to work in a television station and discovered the movie Videodrome not long after seeing The Ring. It soon became a favorite of mine.

Also I posted a lot on a videogame forum so Videodrome seemed appropriate.

 

The first computer I purchased for myself was a Tandy 1000. I remember that the 10 MEG drive cost something like $250. My first computer, however, was a Radio Shack Color Computer. It had a whole 4k (as in 4,096 bytes) of memory. You hooked it to the tv and it saved programs on an audio-cassette recorder. Diskettes didn't come out for about 3 or 4 years after that.

As for BBS's, I ran a 4-line BBS out of my home. It was absolutely amazing to be able to chat with 4 people in real-time back then.

As for my name, I'm a Stephen King fan. My name is a combination of the freaky, red-hed kid from Children of the Corn (Malaki) and the year I graduated high-school (1986). I had to add the '86' to my name after the name Malaki started being used more and more.

 

I have been fighting it for years! I always hated it when people would call me Mr Bill, Even though I love the Saturday Night Live skits. In the end I decided if you can't beat em, join em!

 

Hawk was the old man CB handle and all his friends use to call me Little Hawk or Hawk Jr..

 

I think my mother came up with mine....

Yep, had to be or else I would be named "Knothead".