[Life] Spanning Decades in IT

Author: JEFFI CHAO HUI WU

Time: 2025-6-25 Wednesday, 5:11 AM

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[Life] Spanning Decades in IT

In 1986, I touched a computer for the first time in a laboratory at Shenzhen University, and the computer still emitted the smell of pine resin and metal. At that time, code had to be handwritten and then punched into paper tape, with the state of each logic gate clearly tangible. Little did I expect that this primitive dialogue with electronics would become the starting point of my forty-year journey in IT.

No one expected that I would personally experience every technological revolution in the IT world over the next forty years. From assembly language to BASIC, and then to the era of Windows 3.1, I didn't miss a single step. At that time, installing MS Office required 43 floppy disks, which had to be inserted in strict order without missing a single one; otherwise, the installation would fail. There were no CD drives or the internet back then, and all software updates had to be copied and installed from home. I not only assembled my own computer but also maintained a second-hand car, repaired hardware, and optimized systems; everything had to be done by myself.

In the early 1990s, the DOS system was still dominated by a black background and white text. I was poring over a thick English manual to learn FoxPro, building databases within the constraints of 640KB of memory—those CRUD operations that seem rudimentary today helped me understand the most fundamental form of data. While others chased the glamorous interface of Windows 3.0, I became engrossed in the formula engine of Excel 5.0, using it to create an inventory system that later supported the operations of a printing factory. Looking back, that logistics network woven with functions had long foreshadowed what we now call "low-code platforms."

When the bells of the millennium rang, I typed my first `<table>` tag in FrontPage. This tool, later mocked as an "antique," made me realize that the true essence of the Web is not the stacking of frameworks, but the topological relationships of information. Those static pages of only 4KB, like the "small frame" in martial arts, carried the most efficient navigation with the simplest structure. Twenty years later, as the version numbers of React and Vue roll into double digits, my HTML pages continue to run smoothly on servers in Australia—without npm audit alerts, without dependency hell, just like the copper man formation of Shaolin Temple, becoming more unbreakable the simpler it is.

After 2010, I watched the entire industry fall into "technological fetishism." Developers were storing shopping lists on the blockchain. Meanwhile, I designed a QR code warehousing system using Excel functions in 2005 and laid out printed documents in CorelDRAW. These tools, labeled as "outdated," became weapons in my hands against the homogenization of AI. When AI got tangled up in my FrontPage code, I seemed to see that young man soldering circuit boards at Shenzhen University—we high-fived across time and space, sharing the same joy: those who truly understand the essence of technology never need to chase trends.

In 1993, I set up a remote cooperation warehouse in Suzhou and had already designed a simple inventory management system that utilized manual coding, logical positioning, large item unpacking, and combined shipping modes. At that time, international trade typically involved loading only three types of bulk commodities into each container, while we managed to load 1,100 boxes and dozens of SKUs into a single container, which was a highly disruptive model at the time. Who would have thought that I had already built an early "distributed logistics structure"?

In 2004, I began creating websites using FrontPage on my own. There was no design team, no programmers, and no marketing personnel; everything started from scratch. On July 4, 2004, I produced the first version of the "Australian Longwind Information Network," which consisted of only seven web pages but laid the foundation for one of the earliest Chinese portals in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2005, I created a forum, making it one of the first websites in Australia to have an interactive platform. These websites are still operational today, with a primitive structure and stable architecture, not relying on any AI, big data, or cloud computing, yet they have survived resiliently in the information world, repeatedly breaking through the preset boundaries of artificial intelligence.

I wrote the webpage myself, designed the front end, maintained the back end, and even handled the promotion all by myself. The homepage is only 4KB, yet it achieves dynamic image transitions and multi-dimensional link navigation that many high-end websites today may not be able to realize. Due to its outdated technology and simple structure, even modern AI, crawlers, and bots cannot penetrate it, thus inadvertently achieving a world-class level of network defense. To this day, this technology still runs stably and can be regarded as a high-level "lost technology."

Artificial intelligence often boasts of knowing everything, yet it is completely unfamiliar with my "old-fashioned technologies." When it sees my webpage structure, it is like encountering a chariot of Qin Shi Huang on a modern highway—unable to read or predict. In the eyes of AI, all my websites belong to the category of "unrecognizable structures," which cannot be imitated or attacked. Meanwhile, the new generation of engineers hardly knows the principles and design logic of these first-generation web technologies.

So, when I look back over these decades, I am not just an "experiencer," but also a "connector." My system architecture was not learned from books; it was forged by my own hands through countless late nights of trial and error, reconstruction, and optimization. I did not rely on a team, did not rely on capital, and did not rely on the dividends of the times; I simply traversed the entire process of information civilization from DOS to AI with an uncompromising spirit.

Perhaps, in the eyes of others, these outdated technologies have long been eliminated by the times, but I have always known that those who truly grasp the underlying structure possess the deepest freedom. And these experiences cannot be taught in courses, nor can they be imitated by artificial intelligence. Because I am not just a user of technology; I am fundamentally someone who understands it, shapes it, and transcends it.

Source: http://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=696506