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Do You Remember Your First?
It was the mid-eighties. I had a degree in Literature from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and I was determined to make my living as a freelance writer. And I adored my typewriter—the noises it made, the satisfying push on the keys, the occasional ink on my hands from changing ribbons. I’d heard personal computers were the next big thing, but not for me. No self-respecting writer would give up a beautiful typewriter for that.
Then, at a writer’s conference, I was introduced to this bad boy:
And it seduced me with the convenience of never having to retype a whole page because of a typo or a reconsidered word choice, with the usefulness of having all my work on one slender floppy disk, with the smooth way the keyboard clipped onto the front so you could carry it by the handle in the back like a sewing machine. All my writerly pride went out the window. I had to have it.
Nowadays, I sling around two slim MacBooks like they were nothing, and I can hardly believe I once thought that heavy Kaypro was portable, or that dot-matrix printers were legible. But I’ll never forget you, Kaypro II. You turned my head, you metal-cased rascal you.
What was your first computer?
Published in Technology
Shoulda thunk of that, although mine was actually more recent although still an analog:
I bought a plastic abacus when I was in Japan on Air Force TDY. It was a kid’s version for school. I learned how to use it, but it was apparent I would never be fast with it. Learning it was fun, however.