As a historian, allow me to make a couple of comments. If you are really interested in pursuing this professionally, then you have a number of options.
If you're reasonably intelligent and reasonably creative you can create your own niche. But to do anything you need to gain a good combination of qualifications & experience. Someone suggested library science but I think you're unlikely to find much joy there; unless you're interested in becoming a technician (and I think you're aiming at something else).
I'd suggest two other approaches: archival or musuem studies or plain old university history. When searching out programs/classes your key phrases will be "material history" and "history of science and technology". Material history studies non-textual artifacts (computers fit here) and history & philosophy of science and technology will provide the theoretical and intellectual background you'll need. In an academic setting, history is all about contextualization and analysis. You'll need to supplement this stuff with hands-on experience. There's lots of musuem/archival internships avaliable and even if the setting doesn't directly fit into your goals, that experience is vital. Like other areas, it's a competitive and (occassionally back-stabbing) arena but it can be rewarding. But not financially rewarding: I hope you're not looking at this for the big paycheck because you'll be disappointed.
One other bit of advice: don't put all your eggs in one basket. You're young, you're enthusiatic, you're probably intelligent. Don't close any doors. If you decide to attend university take a wide variety of courses in stuff that looks interesting. You may find in two years that what really gets you going is marine biology.
I had one and it was the Powerbook from Hell: it ate motherboards and hard drives. When it did work, it froze all the time.
After taking into it the shop too many times, I sent it back to Apple Canada. They "fixed it". It died again a week and a half later. After protracted negotiations with several managers, I was able to get a new 1400 for free.
Star Office cannot handle Excel files (97 or newer) with any grace whatsoever. It'll open the file but any cells with formulas will be presented as errors. I have a client whose documents are all Excel 97 or 2000 files. The only way I could deal them was to open them with FileMaker Pro on my Mac. Neither StarOffice or Lotus SmartSuite on my WinPC (or StarO. on my Linux box) could handle them. And with FileMaker, any formatting is immediately lost and comments are ignored, so when I exported the data back to a spreadsheet, I had to fix all the formatting. It was a mess. I had to suck it up and purchase Excel 2000. Thankfully, I could get it at an academic price, so the hit wasn't too bad. Intercompatibility with spreadsheets is a myth.
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As a historian, allow me to make a couple of comments. If you are really interested in pursuing this professionally, then you have a number of options.
If you're reasonably intelligent and reasonably creative you can create your own niche. But to do anything you need to gain a good combination of qualifications & experience. Someone suggested library science but I think you're unlikely to find much joy there; unless you're interested in becoming a technician (and I think you're aiming at something else).
I'd suggest two other approaches: archival or musuem studies or plain old university history. When searching out programs/classes your key phrases will be "material history" and "history of science and technology". Material history studies non-textual artifacts (computers fit here) and history & philosophy of science and technology will provide the theoretical and intellectual background you'll need. In an academic setting, history is all about contextualization and analysis. You'll need to supplement this stuff with hands-on experience. There's lots of musuem/archival internships avaliable and even if the setting doesn't directly fit into your goals, that experience is vital. Like other areas, it's a competitive and (occassionally back-stabbing) arena but it can be rewarding. But not financially rewarding: I hope you're not looking at this for the big paycheck because you'll be disappointed.
One other bit of advice: don't put all your eggs in one basket. You're young, you're enthusiatic, you're probably intelligent. Don't close any doors. If you decide to attend university take a wide variety of courses in stuff that looks interesting. You may find in two years that what really gets you going is marine biology.
I had one and it was the Powerbook from Hell: it ate motherboards and hard drives. When it did work, it froze all the time.
After taking into it the shop too many times, I sent it back to Apple Canada. They "fixed it". It died again a week and a half later. After protracted negotiations with several managers, I was able to get a new 1400 for free.
Star Office cannot handle Excel files (97 or newer) with any grace whatsoever. It'll open the file but any cells with formulas will be presented as errors. I have a client whose documents are all Excel 97 or 2000 files. The only way I could deal them was to open them with FileMaker Pro on my Mac. Neither StarOffice or Lotus SmartSuite on my WinPC (or StarO. on my Linux box) could handle them. And with FileMaker, any formatting is immediately lost and comments are ignored, so when I exported the data back to a spreadsheet, I had to fix all the formatting. It was a mess. I had to suck it up and purchase Excel 2000. Thankfully, I could get it at an academic price, so the hit wasn't too bad. Intercompatibility with spreadsheets is a myth.