Valentí Julià Juanola

Since I was very young, I have been passionate about computers. At the age of 6 or 7, I already had a great curiosity to investigate how a computer worked, both in terms of its physical components and the applications that made it function.

My first computer ran on the Windows 95 operating system, with an Intel Pentium I, 24 MB of RAM, and a 256 MB hard drive. Whenever I had the opportunity, I conducted various tests, but often the operating system failed to load. In those cases, we used to take it to my childhood friend's father to get it repaired. This happened several times in a few months until I decided to learn how to install the operating system by myself. At that time, installation was done with floppy disks, and there were no wizards, just command-line instructions (cmd). By observing my friend's father and with the help of manuals and the internet, I managed to format and install the operating system.

From that point on, I began what I call the "hands-on" phase, which involved disassembling and reassembling the computer, piece by piece. During this process, I learned a lot about the components. As I disassembled the parts, I searched for information on the internet (using my parents' computer) to learn more about each component.

Once I had finished assembling the computer, I felt very proud that no parts were left over, and I decided to turn it on. However, shortly after turning it on, it stopped and started emitting smoke. At that moment, I was very afraid, thinking it might explode. After a short period of time, I tried to turn it on again, but it no longer responded.

When I consulted my childhood friend's father, he explained that I needed to apply the famous thermal paste to the processor to prevent overheating and protect the surrounding chips.

From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. No matter how difficult the path, I had to pursue it.