My dad was a math professor. One day he brought home a programmable calculator. Among other things, you could type in a series of instructions and get it to play a basic Battleship game. I thought that was pretty cool.
I worked as a graduate assistant in the Communication Department at ACU, teaching freshman speech. One of the other GAs had an Apple ][ computer. Wow! Then, the next semester, one of my friends got one of those new computers: a Macintosh. Wow!!
Following that semester, I went to Argentina as a missionary apprentice. One job that I stepped into was preparing a bulletin for the congregation we worked with. I used an IBM Selectric typewriter (the one where you could change “fonts” by switching the type ball) and did real cut and paste, with scissors and glue. I also learned to use Letraset, which allowed me to do special effects with headlines.
While I was in Argentina, my dad bought a computer. He mainly used it for WordStar, a powerful word processor. It was far from user friendly, but it got the job done.
When I returned to the States, I also returned to ACU to complete my Master’s in Communication. One of my fellow GAs, J.D. Wallace, had an electronic typewriter. It allowed you to type in different sizes, to do bold and italics, and even stored a page in memory so that you could go back and do corrections.
J.D. and I did a project together. I spent time putting together the cover, carefully using Letraset to produce a professional looking document. I had seen the jagged graphics put out by computers and was smug in knowing that my painstaking handiwork had created something so much nicer. I remarked to J.D., “Let’s see a computer do that.” To which he replied, “They can do that.” And my world officially changed.
It was one of those moments in life where I thought I had some money. Several thousands dollars can seem like a lot to a college student. So I decided to go computer shopping. One of my friends, Doug Brown, had let me use his Mac some. As he extolled the virtues of the Mac over the PC, I was sold. I wanted a Mac.
At that time, there was one store in Abilene that sold Macs. I’m not sure how, because their prices and service were terrible. At least the salesman had no interest in wasting time on a college student. I finally made the drive to Dallas to buy my Mac. The salesman I spoke with had been raised as a missionary kid in Africa. He understood the issues of taking a computer overseas. (I was already committed to go to Argentina; I was soon to be committed to marry as well, but that’s another story) I bought my Mac and made the happy trek home.
In those days, Macs came without much software. For a while I had a computer that couldn’t do much of anything. And it took me a while to get a printer, spending $200 on a dot matrix that took 6 minutes to print one page. (!) Eventually I’d buy a 20MB hard drive ($400) and add a second megabyte of memory (another $400).
I’ve bought a number of computers since then. But that was my beginning in the computer world. The other day on Twitter, I commented to someone that I had bought my first Mac in 1988. They replied, “I was born in 1988.”
Sigh…
There are a lot of firsts around technology. My first computer was a basic Amstrad. Remember locoscript? The first game I remember playing was when my dad came home with a tennis game for the TV. Two simple bats and a square ‘ball’ to hit across the screen. I was born in 1961 so I still remember a world without computers. I used a slide rule at school because the calculator hadn’t been invented yet. My first calculator was a very tacky looking L.E.D. Sinclair. I thought it was amazing. As for whether this breakneck technological revolution is a good thing, I suspect it’s a bit like driving a car without the brakes: http://radref.blogspot.com/2011/06/lives-made-much-easier-reflecting-on.html
Phil,
I’m “class of 1961” as well, as they say it in Latin America. I never used a slide rule. My dad gave me a really fancy one once, one that someone had given him. Wish I knew how to use it.
I almost included video games in this reminescence. I got an Intellivision back in 1981. (Still have it, still works, should anyone feel like playing NFL Football) We bought my dad an Intellivision II because they promised to bring out an attachment that would make it a computer. Never happened, of course. (He did enjoy playing Tron Deadly Discs)
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
I got my introduction to computers as a programmer trainee in 1960. At the time, a single computer would fill a room. It had less computing power than my cheap laptop has now. The input was on cards – and it was before transistors. I worked as a programmer until the end of 1962 when I quit to go to New Zealand as a missionary.
My next experience was when my teen-aged son bought a Vic-20 (4k of RAM + a ROM Basic Language). I taught myself the Basic and programmed a few things on this machine in about 1982 or 1983. At the end of ’83 I bought the Commodore 64 with a disk drive & dot-matrix printer. I’ve not been without a computer since, and my life is much different!
I wrote my MA Thesis using an electric typewriter (and borrowing my professor’s typewriter to do Greek characters, which was really tedious). What I would have given for a word processor then, but the price was beyond me in the mid-1970’s. Now, I do not know how I would function without my faithful Toshiba with Windows and Office – plus, of course, E-Sword, Gmail, and access to the world wide web!
My first computer ran Windows 3.1. It was a high school graduation gift from my parents. That Fall in college on of my classmates came to me and said, “Hey, the library has this thing called ‘Internet’ now. Wanna check it out?” I said (no joke), “The ‘Internet’? I’ve heard of that.”
That was in September 1994, I believe.
:-)
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