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Computers |
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Today Computers are my friend. I remember back in 1980 when I was a High School student in Palo Alto, California, all we had was basically DOS, BASIC and PASCAL and a few other weird mathematical computation languages, a DSL modem, considered a Hard Line WAN, ran at 300 baud only ( 1/187th ) the speed that a dial-up runs at today. I learned how to program on our school districts computer system, an HP-3000, on a terminal in the Computer Study Room, and there were about 20 of us students, a couple of the gang had slow dial-up terminals at home to the districts computer and they could connect and do some simple computing. Of course, being in Palo Alto, there were other computers in town and we had lots of fun dialing into the Apollo System at Stanford University just minutes away by Bike. Hewlett Packard was and is only 4 miles from there and other companies like SRI, Varian and Zialog were nearby too. The first IBM based computer I helped build was an IMSAI 8080, the first computer in history that resembled anything like a modern desktop. Shortly afterwards Apple computer came out with another, they were located in Palo Alto too. Although the Apple and the IMSAI came about the same time the Apple was by far more user friendly! The IMSAI had to be programmed using about 32 switches on the front of the chassis which you had to switch-in each bit of information manually, four bits at a time, its Assembly Language didn't understand how to load a program automatically unlike the "Install Shield" we have now, doing anything was a very time consuming process. Most people weren't into small (personal) computers because even if you could program it there were not any useful programs you could run, if you were lucky enough to have a compatible video card then you would get something like (and was) an early DOS on the screen, two colors, black and white, the background being black and the text, white. These early computers looked impressive though, for their time high-tech, with lots of LEDs and Integrated Circuits under the cover. About this same time Apple did away with the DOS Command Line looking interface and focused on graphics and a user friendly GUI that was the basis of all GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) we have today. As Microsoft developed Windows 3x, Intel was just getting on their way into the personal desktop computer hardware business, an obviously good move and we still have the evidence in our desktop computers today, "EMM386, extended memory," twenty years later. There was no Internet, no "www," "http:," no "ISP," or "e-Mail," only small corporate networks here and there owned by the prospering businesses or colleges that could afford the luxury, but it didn't take an insightful person to imagine what it would become and even today computing may be well behind what was predicted by us then. Networking was beginning to bloom early as I progressed through High School, it wasn't long before almost every business had a "Network." These early networks, I hate to say it, had almost no security features and before I got to my senior year a few of my friends from the Computer User's Group had been busted for doing what they knew was wrong, changing grades, which, trust me, wasn't tough. My mom did ask me, after it made the local paper, "So, were you in computer study with them?" I was really almost never around when the system was cracked, the one time I was I walked away as quickly as I could. I lost interest in computing about my Junior year in High School partly because DOS looked mostly drab and also because programming was changing so rapidly, I saw few programming languages that I believed would be around today and my predictions were correct. Since age 16 I had been working as a Prep-Cook for a family owned restaurant nearby my father's residence and graduated High School in 1984 with a diploma because I had kept good study habits. My first year at college I took up employment as one of many telemarketers for the Santa Clara Co. Deputy Sheriff's Association working on commission, I was selling businesses advertisement space in their charitable publications so that they could be distributed freely throughout the county, and that's how I put myself through a Mechanic's training program through Consumer's Affairs and the local Junior College. In 1985 then too I had completely forgotten about computers, it was around nine years ago after my being a Licensed Smog Mechanic for the State of California since 1986 that I was turned on to computers again in 1999. I had just finished writing my Novel that I started while I was in the ARMY, in 1989, and a friend gave me his NEC laptop after upgrading to a newer one, it had Windows 3.1 installed but I still had to type "WIN:" at the DOS prompt, I used its program called "Write" that was useful to me. My neighbor came by one day and started teaching me the DOS that I didn't know or had forgotten since school and after seeing his desktop system with Windows 98SE it was time for me to upgrade. I saved some money by working in restaurants, since 1997, and went to a nearby "Circuit City" electronics store and bought an e-Machines desktop computer with Windows ME, a 2000, and wow, what an upgrade! "The thing was pretty awesome, for what I paid for it." Next year Windows XP was coming out and it was supposed to be more stable, but as far as I had learned it was going to be a first release of the working Window's "kernel" from NT designed for home use, I didn't upgrade until 2006, but my version of XP sp2 will probably be a collectors item someday! I have been getting pretty attached to my computer now and I'm becoming optimistic again about computing as a Hobby, and also Desktop Publishing, almost like how I felt when I was first introduced to computers in back in 1979. More Soon ...
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