Uh oh. This technology thing is great when it works, but right now it’s not working well. I am having trouble with Google Chrome across the board — search engines, blog access, Drive — it all needs a shot of technological Ex-Lax as I write this. I am not sure if the problem is system-wide or if it’s a PICNIC (Problem In Chair Not In Computer) problem but we’ll keep plugging away. It’s ironic, because what I was going to discuss today is how much I love technology.
I am 61 years old. I feel for the most part like I am in my early 20s. I can remember my childhood, for better or worse, very well. When I was in grade school I, for a number of reasons, spent a lot of time sitting and waiting in the car. When I could anticipate these waits I brought a stack of comic books or a Hardy Boys book and spent the time reading. If I exhausted the reading material I wound up sitting and spinning, as it were.
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been revisiting those times, sitting and waiting, usually in the car, as I have been chauffeuring my younger daughter around to acting rehearsals, voices lessons and the various la-da-da-da-dee that parents do before their children are old enough to drive. The distance from our house to the destination often precludes dropping off and going home and coming back later; it’s easier to stay and sit and wait. As long as I have my Kindle Fire, that is.
Did I mention at some point here that I received a Kindle Fire for Christmas? It’s taken me a little while but I have it up and running to the point where it is more than a really sharp e-reader, and the result is that it has become something that I cannot be or do without. I had to smack it a bit to accept Google Drive, but now that it has I can run my law practice from it; work on manuscripts; write book reviews; write blogs; answer e-mail; listen to music tracks; watch videos; keep track of that daughter of mine; and yes, read comic books. That stack of comic books is now theoretically inexhaustible. Oh, and if I want a Hardy Boy book? Yeah, I can get one of those, too.
I don’t want to turn this into a “when I was boy” essay, so I won’t. I read a lot of science fiction when I was younger, however, and to paraphrase Pogo I have seen the future, and it is us. We may have been promised jetpacks, but what we have is plenty good enough. I took my car in for service the other night and the friendly greeter/advisor who met me at the door no longer carries a clipboard. He’s got a tablet, and with a couple of taps he had my vehicle history all the way back to…well, back to when the only tablets were made of aspirin or paper.
Is there a question here? Sure! What technological development has directly changed your life or occupation the most? What new technological tool is indispensable to you?
I can tell you exactly. I graduated law school in 1984. Right on the cusp of the personal computer taking over the world. I did all my papers and exams on a good old Royal electric typewriter. Remember white out?
I was a crazy good typist, having done it part time to bring in pennies while I was an actor in NY. But one night, around 3 a.m., I was typing up an article to submit for consideration to the Law Review, when I realized I had mucked something up. Something that would require white out and massive re-typing. I screamed like in those slo-mo moments NOOOOOO! Woke up my wife in the other room.
So when I got my big firm job, first thing I did was go out and buy a KayPro. This was the coolest thing on wheels. Actually, it was a big box of a thing, but you set it down and took off the lid, and the lid was the keyboard! And it had a screen on one side and two floppy drives on the other! That little baby kicked butt! 64k of RAM!
That, and a daisy wheel printer and I was in heaven. I wrote memos for the senior partners so fast it made them weep with joy.
I still remember my KayPro like a first girlfriend. Maybe I should try to find it again, via Facebook.
Wow…the memories. Those old suitcase computers were so cool. Sigh…the good old days.
Jim, I’m howling. I remember being the first kid on my block with 64k of RAM. I thought I was crouching behind high cotton.
I am the only person in the world who has never bought anything on e-bay, but I just checked and I found several KayPro units for sale…probably safer than that first girlfriend search on Facebook.
Almost forgot to mention…I definitely recall Whiteout. Great stuff…but it was tough to get off of a computer screen…
My first computer–back around 1986–was a CPM system AMSTRAD that I somehow bought in Albany, NY. But it was a revelation and a revolution. I could type out whole manuscripts, correct them and print them out. No more typing and retyping! But here’s the thing–it had no spell checker. We were still in the barnstorming days so they did not come as standard equipment, and I am the worlds worst speler 😉
I bought my first spell checker about a year later. What it did was read the manuscript then print out a list of words it did not recognize and printed them out in alphabetical order. You then had to use FIND to hunt them down (thank the gods for FIND) and correct them. I paid $50 for that software, and I thought it was the best thing since bottled beer.
I started on CP/M as well, and HDOS. My first computer was a Zenith/Heathkit Z80 with both a cassette tape drive and a 5.25in Floppy disk (they were actually floppy then) and an Okidata Microline printer. Figuring out how to get those things working got me hooked on IT. When I figured out how to print on paper from that machine the writing kernel was popping in my head.
wait…actually my first computer was a Commodore VIC20…which I found useless because my parents had no concept of what a printer was. Afterall, we had a 1947 typewriter for printing. Perhaps it they’d understood things differently I wouldn’t have hated IT for so long.
Michael, I believe you are a pretender to my throne as the world’s worst speller…it’s amazing how much software, etc. that was once quite dear is now available for free or something like it. I remember the day when handheld calculators — basic function calculators, plus square root if you were lucky — were $100.00. Now you can get them practically for nothing, in the toy aisle.
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In 1985, as a senior at Pickerington High School, my computer programming instructor came to me and said, “Do you expect to graduate this year?”
“Uh, yes sir,” I replied, a knot forming in my throat.
“Then you need to consider dropping this class for second semester. You have enough credits, but thanks to the solid ‘F’ in this class your GPA will prohibit you from ever seeing the inside of a college.”
That was fine with me, I intended to be a US Marine Corps Officer for a career anyway. I dropped whole IT thing and enlisted in the Corps at 19.
That tough guy career lasted less than a year on active duty that ended with a stay in a hospital then a rehab platoon for major injuries. Wouldn’t you know it, I am now, and have been since 1994, and IT Guy. A fully certified Cisco Network Nerd, Windows Wizard, Linux Geek, Computer Maniac, and overall Tech Guru to the masses. IT is my life.
My most trusted tools of the trade? My Dell Latitude XT-3 tablet laptop (monitor spins and becomes a touchscreen tablet but it’s a full power laptop w/ 8gb ram and very fast solid state HDD) and my Samsung Galaxy S3 Android phone…best phone evuh! Next purchase may well be a Kindle Fire HD 8.9 or a Samsung Note 10.1…which will win the internal debate?
We shall see…..
Basil, as I think we’ve discussed Pickerington is right down the road from me. In fact my wife and daughter go to a dentist there. If you’re ever in the neighborhood (your 20th Anniversary h.s. reunion is in two years) let me know!
I’m lovin’ my Kindle Fire…but my wife’s Samsung Tablet is great as well…
Joe, Hadn’t heard the PICNIC acronym, but you can be certain I’ll steal it.
No doubt, the computer is what got me started on the electronic age. When I was ready to buy my first, my son said, “Get a Mac. They have a Jewish mother operating system.” He was right, and I’m on my fourth or fifth one–lost track by now.
Thanks for the post.
And thank you for dropping by again, Richard! We are a PC household, but just as I learned to pretty much deal with all of those emergencies, my younger daughter got an iMac, so now I’m learning to troubleshoot those as well. Maybe I should open a repair shop.
I wish I could remember where I first encountered that PICNIC acronym…
I’ve got Kindle Fire envy. Google Drive? So cool. My 4G smart phone is my latest indispensible toy, but I’ve been waiting for a more portable version of my computer where I can work on manuscripts too. Having said that, it probably would be a good idea to NOT have email & online distractions so easily accessible.
You are a genius however.
Thank you, Jordan, but I’m hardly a genius. I just follow directions well. If you get that Kindle Fire I’ll walk you through the app sideloading procedure, though hopefully the parties involved will have resolved that nonsense by then. Would that make up for the fact that I in no way resemble Tim Olyphant?
Smart & funny is the new sexy, Joe. Tim who? (Kidding)
Umm…my iPhone4.
This little device revolutionized my life. I have everything in one neat package for work and fun – it’s my modern-day communicator.
On the other hand, Jordan makes a stellar point – managing social connectivity can be a huge distraction.
My muse is not amused, and sometimes he hides it from me so we can devote precious time to writing.
Paula, I’m totally with you on that time bandit element of iPhones, Crackberrys, and the like. On top of the social and informational utilities that such instruments have, however, Apple products have that added design feature that makes touching them and using them almost addictive. It’s hard to describe, but there it is.
I didn’t touch puters till college. My first tech interface did not have a screen. It had a deck-writer. Everything you typed instantly printed, including all the backspaces and strikeovers. When done, you printed a clean copy.
My first home computer had 128K in RAM and I installed a 10 meg harddrive with a screwdriver and a butterknife. With my 9000 baud modem, the interwebz were mine babee! By the time I had worked my way up to 54K baud, I thought I had the last computer I would ever need.
Of course, my phone now blows all of my early empires away. What always gets me is that we put men on the moon with less tech than your Kindle Fire.
Daily irony alert. I had to switch to Chrome to get today’s column to appear. (And you are way cooler than Tim Olyphant.)
Terri, I’m really not, but thank you for the blush. Your memory of 54K baud reminded me of the statement attributed to (and vehemently denied by) Bill Gates to the effect that no one would ever need more than 640k of RAM. That would be just enough to play a game of hearts these days.
I had trouble with Google Chrome from last night through early this morning. There’s a disturbance in the force, Luke!
I hate to admit it, but I was around before the computer age. So I’d say the introduction of a PC made the biggest tech impact on my life. Now things have gone mobile, but I still like my desktop Dell the most.
Joe,
I took typing and shorthand in high school so that makes me older than dirt, I guess. I am not a gadget nut (my phone is one step above one of those old fart things with the big numbers and it has no internet capability. I always forget to charge it.) But the one thing I can’t live without now is Skype. Kelly and I use it every day. Via screen-sharing she can see me actually rewriting a chapter or we can research together on line. It has made collaboration so much easier.
Kris, if that makes you older than dirt then you’re younger than me because it was offered in my high school as well.
I have phone chargers in every room in the house. Everyone always uses mine, however.
I hope that you and Kelly haven’t quit utilizing the cork board and sticky notes. All: if you ever have a chance to see and hear Kris and/or Kelly on a panel talking about how they do the wonderful things that they do, don’t miss it. It’ll take your appreciation of their work to an entirely new level.
Anyone remember IBM punch cards? In 1970 I was in the Air Force when they began to convert from IBM cards to computers. I was in personnel, in Reenlistments and Seperations. When we needed a list of retirees or something for the coming month, we had to write code on graph paper to build the report, then CAREFULLY type the code with a green on black CRT screen. The actual computer was in a large building across the base.
Our reports would get to us in about a week, printed on large size dot matrix paper.
They were a pain, but I caught the bug and have been seriously into computers ever since.
Dave, I recently came across a cache of 80 column cards, used on a system that filled a room. Here’s another one for you: when Ohio State was using magnetic tape on reel to reel, they had two computer rooms on opposite sides of campus and a panel truck that drove those tape reels back and forth, all day long. You can now store the equivalent amount of data on a flash drive that you can carry around in your pocket. I love this era.
I saw my first computer in high school back in 1958. The thing was at Kelly AFB in San Antonio and was about the size of a mobile home.
Dave — Yes, I remember punch cards. In the army in the early sixties, we entered data on a long yellow teletype tape and took it over to the IBM section. They ran it off on punch cards and then we told them what kind of report we wanted. Took a couple days to complete, can do the same thing mow on Excel in less than 30 minutes.
Nigel — Started with a Vic-20 also. Never used for anything useful. Bought a Tandy 1000 and a daisy wheel printer for grad school. It worked and didn’t need whiteout. Typing speed on my Hermes Rocket typewriter was a page an hour on a good day.
Joe — I have problems with this site using Explorer. Chrome works when it doesn’t.
RG, I figure I have a good twenty years left at this point and wonder what will be next. A microscopic implant, perhaps, that links all of us to cyberspace?
I haven’t used Explorer in a couple of years, btw. I’ve simply found it to be more reliable, though certainly individual results willdiffer. My wife still uses IE because she is uncomfortable with change but my daughter is attempting to wean her from it. Anyway, thanks for the frequent visits and going the extra mile to get here. We all appreciate it.