我五年级的时候开始学习使用电脑。那是一台486，硬盘540Mb，内存4Mb，有5寸和3.5寸两种软驱，安装了MS-DOS 5.0和金山SPDOS——包括WPS。我还有一台针式打印机。
在买电脑之前，我爸妈都对电脑有所接触。我爸在部队里用四通中文打字机打五笔。有一次我去他单位玩，见过一次这个打字机。当时我爸还在打印一份材料，要打“兢兢业业”这个词，只见他嘴里念“jing jing ye ye”，但手指打的确是别的字母（现在我知道怎么打，但当时我不懂也没看清）。现在在网上唯一能找到的四通中文打字机图片就是下面这个了：
至于我妈妈，是每周末晚上参加电脑学习班学习电脑。其实我已经写过很多次文章来怀念那个时代了，例如这个。我之所以怀念那个时代，是因为当时我们一家三口都充满着希望。回想那时候的天都好像比现在亮一点。
我上了初中之后，遇到好多家里也有电脑的同学。学校还有一个所谓“电脑协会”。当时除了电脑游戏之外，最能打动我的就是PC巨头们的市场争夺演义了。例如Microsoft是怎么崛起的，以及IBM和Microsoft在DOS上的斗争。后来还包括Intel、Cyrix和AMD三足鼎立的故事。那时候Cyrix最终被打垮了，AMD也被搞得很惨。一个很明显的标志就是，在586之前，大家都用386、486等来称呼CPU的等级，但是到了586之后，大家越来越习惯用Intel的商品名Pentium、Pentium MMX、Pentium II等来称呼CPU的等级了。我从来没使用过Cyrix的CPU，但我总算见过一次装在人家主板上的Cyrix。
Cyrix先是被国家半导体合并，后来National Instruments陷入财政危机，不再对电脑CPU市场感兴趣，Cyrix的工程师一个接一个的走人。后来Cyrix又卖给了VIA。所以到最后有一些Cyrix芯片是同时打了VIA标的。有一个叫CPU World的网站，可以查到历史上Cyrix每个芯片产品的信息。
以下是一些Cyrix CPU的图片：
Cyrix的没落令很多粉丝感到可惜。Wikipedia的Cyrix词条专门有一段Legacy，算是Cyrix的粉丝位基于感情因素为它说的两段好话：
Although the company was short-lived and the brand name is no longer actively used by its current owner, Cyrix’s competition with Intel created the market for budget CPUs, which cut the average selling price of PCs and ultimately forced Intel to release its Celeron line of budget processors and cut the prices of its faster processors more quickly in order to compete.
Additionally, the acquisition of Cyrix’s intellectual property and agreements would be used by VIA to defend itself from its own legal troubles with Intel, even after VIA Technologies stopped using the Cyrix name.
Cyrix被VIA收购时的惨象：
According to Chen, VIA’s representatives were “shocked” to discover that, upon touring Cyrix’s manufacturing plant and corporate offices, their building was nothing but an abandoned gas station with a tin “Cyrix” sign bolted over the front entranceway.
“We at first thought we had the wrong address. Heck, we prayed we had the wrong address,” admitted VIA PR Director Howard Christopherson. “Then some disheveled man wearing a Cyrix lab coat came stumbling out of the front door and fell down in front of us, throwing up all over my shoes. Turns out that the Cyrix engineers, in order to make their company appear to be stronger on paper, just let some homeless people inside, gave them lab coats, and called them ’employees’.”
看了都让人心酸——不过，以上只是泡制出来的笑话新闻，别当真。
在IEEE上找到一篇1995年的文章，当时Cyrix的工程师是多么意气风发啊。