My PC had a faulty RAM which would get hit somewhere in the middle of installation and trigger the blue screen of death. I tried that install program a hundred times. Tried different distributions, tried changing the OS (98 to ME and back). Nothing worked.
And we couldn't afford getting me a new RAM. Mom and Dad were still repaying the loan that they took three years ago to buy me that broken computer. No way they could add a brand new RAM to their expenses.
But I really wanted to build my own website. I would watch video tutorials of FrontPage (on pirated CDs), and I'd imagine using all the techniques from the videos to design my own website. You could make links (for some reason, links seemed cool), and dynamic links that didn't reload the page (which meant iframes everywhere). You could add clip arts (those tacky office cliparts), and buttons that react to the mouse (I could imagine building whole games out of those).
The possibilities would be endless... if only I could get the money to buy that new RAM.
After attempting and failing a few ideas to raise the money, I decided that the only way I could get that kind of money would be to... write a book!
The book would be a guide to a software called "Multimedia Builder." MMB was a tool to make Autorun programs. You could make a window with buttons, videos, music, interactivity. It even had a scripting language. It was very popular at the time and my classmates were asking me to show them how to use it. I decided I'd write a book about it (there were none on the market), sell the book to a publisher, and use the money to buy not just a new RAM, but a whole new computer!
I drafted the layout (somehow layout was more important than content for me). Outlined the chapters. Built folders of step-by-step screenshots...
... until Mom surprised me with $36 that she had gotten as extra salary! One of the best days of my life! Off I ran to the computer market. Bought a brand new SDR Ram, put it on my underpowered PC400 motherboard, started the computer, put the FrontPage CD in, and fired up install. I remember watching the install progress bar slowly fill. It was always near the halfway mark that the blue screen would appear. I remember the angst I felt as the progress bar approached the halfway mark, passed it, and the screen remained very not blue!
I outgrew FrontPage in two weeks. Turns out, FrontPage can't really do much :)
What I should have learned was actually HTML, CSS, and PHP. Which I did, right after. Funny things is though, they would've all ran fine on my faulty RAM! I could've started my web dev adventure a whole year earlier! Good times.