tool name

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008

Computers get their fix: Business owner says he wants to help everyone get online.

Despite reviving dying computers for a living, Kevin Hammon doesn't consider himself a hacker, a software wonder or even a geek.

"I'm more of a mechanic," the 36-year-old shop owner said in between taking service calls.

But he figures out why computers -- not cars -- won't hum along like they should.

He's not the kind of computer addict who can spend hours silently staring blankly into a screen writing code during the wee hours. Instead, he's an affable local guy who's opened a shop to sell refurbished computers at a low rate to residents who otherwise would tumble to the bottom of the digital divide.

Hammon opened Binary Systems Computer Repair & Networking in May. The shop's name comes from computer language -- zeros and ones.

One of the shop's walls is dotted with broken monitors that resemble lava lamps. The industrial modernist design was crafted by Hammon's fiancee, Kimberly Zamora, a local artist and business owner.

His repair shop grew out of his computer booth at the Merced County Flea Market that he's maintained for the past four years. "I became 'the computer guy.' People would walk up with their towers and ask if I could help them," he said.

At first he was shy about taking a crack, but he soon realized he was more than qualified to fix them.

Hammon's still found at the flea market on Sundays with a table filled with parts, TVs and computers, while he waits for his weekly business to increase. On an average weekend, he sells two to three computers.

He acknowledges with a tinge of satisfaction that most of his customers come from "that side of the track," as he pointed south. "My goal is to take good computers and put them back into the community," he explained.

A Hewlett-Packard computer with Windows XP, 512 megabytes of RAM and a 40 gigabyte hard drive sells for $199.99. An Apple G3 costs $99.

The customers have been loyal, and some even bought parts they didn't need because it helped put him through college at California State University, Fresno, where he graduated with an industrial technology degree.

He tries to keep his repair rates low at $40 an hour. Fixing a computer infected by a virus, as long as it's brought to his M Street shop, won't cost more than $80, even if it takes three hours. He remembers what it was like to hear a cost estimate.

Hammon bought his first computer -- a Hewlett-Packard with a 75 megahertz processor, eight megabytes of RAM and a one gigabyte hard drive -- in 1996 for $2,300. He had just left the U.S. Navy and planned to enter college.

He learned how to fix the machine when it broke down by researching the problems on the Internet. He couldn't afford to pay someone to do it, and it fit in with his passion of working on cars. "I like to tinker," he explained. "The computers were always challenging."

Hammon's translated computer-speak into English for Legacy Lending and Legacy Real Estate owner Scot Levesque. After a stint with a bad information technology contractor, he uses Hammon as a consultant.

"A lot of these (computer) guys seem pretty dry. They live in their own worlds," he said. "Kevin lives in our world."

It's a place where zeros and ones can be translated to English -- and dollars. Plus, a computer repairman doesn't have to be a geek.

Reporter Scott Jason can be reached at (209) 385-2453 or sjason@mercedsun-star.com.