Okay, this is a no-brainer. If you can read this, it means you have mastered a few things. One, you know how to use a computer. Two, you have figured out how to connect to the internet. And three, you have figured out how to go to a certain website, or at least read your email.
Congratulations. Had the you of twenty years ago seen you now, he or she would be quite proud.
Computers have been quite a leap in technology for Baby Boomers who grew up with black and white televisions. Indeed, some of us (myself included) have lived in areas that didn't have telephone service. And just look at us now! Interacting instantly with people on all sides of the globe.
But with each of us, it all started with nervously typing on a keyboard for the first time somewhere.
In my case, it was 1982. I was working in a Montgomery Ward's in Amarillo, Texas in general maintenance. My crew would get to the store at 6:00 in the morning and get the place ready for the daily rush of customers (yes, Montgomery Ward's used to do lots of business). While sweeping the floor, I stopped at a display that featured a Commodore Vic-20. You could type up a little BASIC routine that would flash a message on the screen. There was an instruction sheet that stepped you through it. My boss, call him Jim, was an evil little troll to work for. When I walked away from the computer, it was dutifully flashing "Jim sucks! Jim sucks!"
The experience taught me that I could master a computer.
Many of us got our first computers thanks to the lure of games. Indeed, games were the driving force behind the sales of Ataris, Commodores, and TRS-80's. Prices were all over the map, depending on how much of a computer you were willing to buy. You could obtain a Timex Sinclair with a single K of RAM that required a television for use as a monitor for less than a hundred dollars. Or, you could spring $999 for a TRS-80 Model 3 with dual floppies, 16K of RAM, and built-in monitor.
As much of a geek as I turned out to be, it was sort of surprising that I waited until late 1993 to spring for my own smart box. I could just never justify the expense, and I wasn't too much into games. But it was the writing urge that finally made me cough up 1500 bucks for an IBM slc2-66 (basically, a 386 that had been tricked into thinking it was a 486). A couple of months later, I sprang for a 2400 baud modem and connected to my first BBS. Life would never again be the same.
I loved using a word processor that caught things like spelling and grammatical errors, and joining AOL gave me access to people looking for writers.
Today, I have a paid gig producing a daily column for FamilyFirst.com. I decided long ago that while being a full-time writer was feasible, I enjoyed my job as a geek too much to pursue it. So it's a nice little diversion on the side, thanks in large part to a Commodore Vic-20 I encountered 25 years ago.
Commenters, what was your first experience with a home computer?
Comments (5)
A friend bought a Vic-20 and a few months later I bought a Commodore 64 for a lot less. Later, I bought a 286 and a few months later, my friend bought a 386 for about half the price I paid. We still compete on processor and internet speeds.
I remember being a member of CompuServe back when it was all text based. We've come quite a way.
Posted by David S Paleg | July 28, 2007 1:18 AM
Posted on July 28, 2007 01:18
I actually was one of the first people to online-date, and prob one of the very first to on-line cross-country
date. I started out with compuserve, when the new mail blinking light was prob more exciting than just about anything on the internet that came to be. Met a woman online from San Francisco, actually lived with her for a very short while,
around 1993. This was long before TV shows began to feature on-line dating. before even AOL on-line chat,
believe it or not. Later
on I had a lot of fun with AOL chat in the mid-late 90's, and met
(and yes, again lived)
with a woman with two kids in Alaska, and a
woman from San Diego,
who I dated for several years. It's been a very long time since I've dated online, as I'm presently engaged, ironically, with someone I met in real life out in Austin, Tex.
As for PC's, It's amazing how the whole 80's and even early 90's were essentially completely untethered from others. Each was its own little isolated universe, where wee obviously had no worry of viruses, outside of the occasional contaminated floppy.
I think they were almost meant to be commected. If you really think about it, an unmoored computer now, completely isolated, is like a honeybee, absolutely meaningless without any context outside itself.
And who knows what the future has in store?
Posted by scott | July 28, 2007 3:41 AM
Posted on July 28, 2007 03:41
I go back to 1967 on the Digi-Comp 1, a mighty mechanical 3-bit computer. That's right, bit, not byte. I was paid a whopping $10 each for 7 programs of mine that were included in a DC 1 book.
Here is a photo of me with DC 1 and my other 1967 computers at Boing Boing: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/01/origins_of_cyberspac.html
Posted by Mike Ransom | July 28, 2007 10:04 AM
Posted on July 28, 2007 10:04
Wow, Mike, i take my geek hat off to you. You truly are a propeller-head!
Posted by Ron Enderland | July 28, 2007 10:09 AM
Posted on July 28, 2007 10:09
I couldn't even tell you what type of computer I first used in 1984; heck, I'd have a hard time now with this one. But I was working in a bank that processed only million dollar loans and deposits; we did the book work BY HAND. I also had just had my first son. The bosses showed us the computer with the big old printer; it had to be bigger than my kitchen table today! I remember my boss saying my son would know more about computers than I would in the future. Well, sorry to say, he was right. :(
Posted by Debbie Larkin | August 1, 2007 2:06 PM
Posted on August 1, 2007 14:06