I sit in front of the computer with five floppy disks stacked neatly. The disks are shiny and new, like the ones we use for school projects. I swap them carefully, one by one, into the drive. Each click sounds important, as if something powerful is about to happen.

The screen fills with strange words: MS-DOS. I type in commands I learned from the BBS boards—DIR, CD, and then the path to where I put the files. Each time I press Enter, a new world appears on the screen, but this one looks different. It’s not like anything we’ve played before.

A man with pointy horns stands tall, ready for battle. I click the mouse, and the game starts loading. The levels are dark, filled with monsters and secrets. It’s hard to see at first, but the colors come alive as I move around. The game is fast and loud, unlike anything else.

When it finally loads, I start playing. But more than just the game, something in my mind shifts. There are folders and files, commands that do things. I type them on purpose now, not just to play games but because I want to know how this all works. The computer isn’t a toy anymore; it’s like a door opened to a new world of possibilities.