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THE COMPUTERS OF MY LIFE

 I absolutely love using the computer.

I absolutely hate using the computer.
Both of the above statements are absolutely true.
I remember my first introduction to a machine called a computer. It was an ad in newspaper from Radio Shack. I took it to Milan and told him I wanted one thinking it was some kind of magic box that could give you information on anything by just asking. Kind of like Google but of course there was no google then.
This would have been late 60's, early 70s.
Then I realized you had to literally put information into it before you could get something out
I had started collecting information in the form of ephemera probably in the 5th or 6th grade although I had no knowledge of the word itself. I just called it clippings and I started in shoeboxes, then graduated to large boxes, then filing cabinets. I was good at collecting - recovering not so good. It was like everything went into a black hole so a machine that could find it all for me would be a miracle.
The next thing that happened, it was 1985 and I was working for New York Life and my manager told me I would have to buy a computer for my home. He didn't tell me it would cost over $5000 but I was making good money, so what the heck?
It was 1990 or so before I found out about the internet and I've been working on figuring it out ever since.
Computers are now cheaper which is good since I no longer make any money at all. My original printer was a tractor feed about the size of the computer itself. Together they filled up a whole wall in my office.
My first laptop was carried in a suitcase made for it. It probably weighed in at 25=30 lbs and had to be plugged in. No battery. It cost $7000 but NYL said I would have to have it in order to keep making money. It's probably the reason I have back trouble today because I carried it around like a purse but it was bigger than the biggest briefcase you could get.
Back in those days you had to hire an electrician to set a computer up. at least for someone with my limited lack of intelligence. I've never learned how to operate an electric can opener yet, nor can I figure out a screw driver although I do know how a Phillips differs from others.
I loved it when plug and play became the norm but it took me a year to figure out USB, I still don't understand how that little thing can draw out electricity from the wall. But of course I don't understand electricity anyway. BTW I had dial up for years.
If there was ever anyone more dense than me about computers etc it had to be my attorney boss, John Low. He didn't like change. That's why for 21 years I took shorthand across the desk in his office. He would never have used a dictating machine! Telling you this because I still think it is funny.
His son Mark was just starting college and he told his dad he could make more money by learning stuff about a "computer". Mr. Low was convinced he would starve to death trying to make a living that way. He was convinced computers were a trend that would never go anywhere and we would always use a typewriter and shorthand in a law office, and file our information on 3x5 index cards, arranged alphabetically in a drawer. Mr. Low was definitely not prescient on the subject.
If you know Mark Low, you know he is a computer wizard, both in using and installing and he had the computer market locked up for years in Lebanon because he was so far ahead of the game. I don't think his dad ever apologized to him for feeling the way he did, although he was always so proud of anything Mark did. I was working for his dad when he was born, and he has been like a son to me and of course my go-to person on computers ever since Day One.

©    Joan Rowden Hart 2000

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