My First Computer
August 4th, 2013(This post is part of a series at Book View Café, and is cross-posted there.)
Gather round children, and let me tell you a frightening truth: I got through four years of college without a personal computer.
Everyone did in those days, but within a year of graduating, the personal computer revolution had taken off. This was 1983. I was getting married. The husband-to-be wondered if I wanted an engagement ring. I considered it for about a second-and-a-half and said, “Get me a computer instead.” Because by this time I’d decided I was going to be a writer.
So we decided on a Columbia VP Portable, mostly, as I recall, because it was significantly cheaper than the “IBM Clone” desktops of the time. “Portable” is a slight exaggeration on the part of the manufacturer. It’s really a crushingly heavy 35-pounds, not something you’d want to carry with you while commuting on a bus, but it served my purposes.
I learned to write on that computer, and the only thing I used it for was writing, so don’t ask me about DOS. The software I used was WordPerfect, and I have only one complaint about it: now and then when I would load a file, only the first few paragraphs would be retrieved. Unaware of this because the screen was so small, I’d happily start revising from the top of the document, hitting control-S every now and then, only to discover later that the end of the file was missing… and that I’d already overwritten the initial file. (I believe I began to understand the purpose of backup files shortly after this.) At any rate, I was so emotionally scarred by the experience of losing my work that to this day I will often jump to the end of a newly loaded file just to make sure it’s really there.
Many generations of computers have passed through our household since 1983, but the only one I’ve kept long past its time is the first one, the “engagement computer,” not so much because I’m sentimental, but because it’s a curiosity that doesn’t take up a lot of room. I also still have a few 5.25-inch floppy discs, just to complete the collection. Before writing this post, I pulled the old Columbia out to take a few photos. Many years had passed since I’d last turned it on, but I decided to try. Hesitating for just a moment, I turned to the husband (same one): “What if it catches fire?”
It didn’t–and at thirty years of age, it still ran. I didn’t try to actually boot it, a disc needs to be inserted to accomplish that, but the screen lit up, and although there were bright green lines running diagonally across it, the cursor blinked. For a confused moment I couldn’t recall the proper procedure for shutting it down–and then remembered to use the on/off switch.
Ah, but time marches on, and as I sit here typing this post on my one-year-old Mac with its 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and its 27″-inch screen, I can honestly say that I don’t miss the old Columbia.
Not in the least.
Posted on: Sunday, August 4th, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Writing.
August 4th, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Thanks, Linda.
How have you managed the process of file migration to new formats (and new computers) over the years?
Oh, and apropos nothing, we said good things about RED: First Light at Diversicon today. 🙂
August 4th, 2013 at 3:30 pm
Hi Paul — and thanks for speaking kindly of TRFL! Much appreciated. Word of mouth is supposed to be the key. 🙂
As for file migration, I’ve worried about compatibility from the early days, and made it a point to convert files every time the word processor and the storage medium changed dramatically. Fortunately, I’ve always had an “in-between” computer–for example, one with 5.25″ and 3.5″ floppy drives, and then another with a 3.5″ and a CD drive. Ultimately, there were a lot of issues involved with a Word Perfect to Word conversion that required undefinable characters to be hunted down and eliminated, but everything is up-to-date now.
August 4th, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Migration problems were inadvertently discussed at a different panel when Jack McDevitt was talking about the Dark Ages that happen in his future history.
I wasn’t even the guy who brought up RED, it was the head of the Panel (on books so far in 2013 that people should take a look at) did. There was much love for your previous work, and appreciation that you were “back in the game”.
August 4th, 2013 at 8:05 pm
That’s awesome, Paul. Thanks for letting me know. It’s really hard sometimes to gauge if there’s real interest out there, so that’s terrific to hear.
August 9th, 2013 at 7:23 am
Oh, there’s real interest all right. This your blog shows that you have a loyal fanclub. Now all we need is a secret handshake. No wait, this is cyberspace. Perhaps a t-shirt, something with a VAST cover….
August 9th, 2013 at 7:26 am
Ah, but we mustn’t exploit Bruce’s art! We’ll have to think of something else to designate the kool kids. 😉
August 10th, 2013 at 3:23 am
Lovely post Linda. I’ve always found the history of computers fascinating. The first computer I had was a British made Amstrad PC 1512 my father bought in the late 80’s when I was in my teens. It came with a version of WordStar (some adaptation of WordStar 4.0, I think), which I used to write, among other things, a rather strange, epic (and very grand to my way of thinking) never-finished novel about a 15th century boy who sailed to pre-Columbian North America and had to fight to protect a population of innocent giant ant-like beings from the continent’s rulers – Nazi-like descendents of the Vikings. I used to love executing the spellcheck feature at the end of every chapter I wrote – and the charming thing is, after doing this for some weeks (or months) my own previously horrendous spelling had dramatically improved!
Besides WordStar, which ran on DOS, the Amstrad, despite having only an 8088 cpu also had quite a decent graphical user interface – GEM, and a GEM-based version of BASIC, with which I learned the art of programming largely by trial and error, and which became a lifelong passion of mine.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
August 10th, 2013 at 7:15 am
Hi Robert — thanks!
I remember when I got my first laptop, my dad asked how big the hard drive was:
“Five gigabytes.”
“Oh, you’ll never use all of that.”
LOL
August 13th, 2013 at 10:24 pm
You never forget your first. Mine was a Mac Performa desktop, which underperfomed – but thank goodness I started with Apple, which was so much harder to screw up than Windows.
By I didn’t learn it in school: The class I took was “typing”, with an electronic typewriter. I used to send you Writer Digest School assignments using a manual typewriter.
August 14th, 2013 at 6:13 am
A manual typewriter?? Now that is dedication! 🙂
August 14th, 2013 at 5:21 pm
I learned to type on a manual typewriter when I was 13 – a skill that still serves me wonderfully today! :-).
August 14th, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Dedication, maybe — but it was all I had to work with! I still have it, too … but I’m more than happy to be working on a screen now, instead of using an eraser or editing marks.
August 14th, 2013 at 7:55 pm
I’ve often said that I never would have been a writer without a computer to work on–I do so much revising–so I really admire all those who did it the hard way.
August 14th, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Absolutely — it’s so much better to work on the story, especially the little details, when you can revise on the computer.
On a related note, I just (about five minutes ago) got back into the SF short story game, submitting a story to Asimov’s — one of the same stories you worked with me on during the WD course. I was sidetracked for years by life and other writing projects, but I’m diving back into it.
August 14th, 2013 at 8:40 pm
That is awesome!! Best of luck with it. Let me know how it goes.
August 14th, 2013 at 8:42 pm
I will!