I am not very good with words, but, I do say I agree with you. When I first started out on computers, I started out on a commodore 64, then up graded to a over used commodore 128. Mainly to play games on. But my dad gave me a book on how to program the courser to bounce around on the screen, which took about one week to get the code all typed out and fixed.
Long story short, then upgraded to a Packard Bell 3300. First introduced to Win95. Learned a few more things. Then decided to take it apart and rebuild it. That is when I started really getting into computers. Like you did, I would go around and hunt for parts, or anywhere I could get parts from.
That is my little story about how I got into computers. But I am still learning all kinds of new things on my own, Using all the tools that are accessible. It is not hard to learn things on your own, but sometimes it is nice to have a helping hand.