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My Journey With Tech
Oct. 18th, 2018 08:40 pmAn old friend asked on Facebook how our computerised lives had evolved. This was my reply:
In the early eighties I never did typing lessons at school though I *think* they were available. At some time during my very earlier teens, possibly even before, my family managed to get hold of a ‘plinky plonky’ old typewriter which I used every time I wanted to write something ‘official’, amazing myself that I could produce things that looked a bit like those you’d get through the post. Having no idea what I was doing (or that you could buy such things as new ribbons), I think my word count was about three per hour.
Between the months of school and college, a pal asked if I’d enrol with her at a local school who offered evening typing classes. She’d decided on a late stab at a secretarial career but didn’t really want to go on her own. We dutifully enrolled, turning up to several lectures until realising that not only was the venue a cold and miserable place, but that there was a rather fine pub around the corner. Though I discovered the delights of an electric golf ball typewriter, we never completed the course and to my knowledge, the friend never became a secretary.
In the early nineties, my then partner and I got our greedy paws on a used Compaq PC loaded with Windows 2.0. It had both ‘games’ and ‘Paint’ on it so we were amused for many an hour. We were also able to load some rather cheap and nasty shareware such as mind numbingly slow chess and ‘typing for beginners’ via floppy disk. Through work, the partner met a ‘well dodgy geyser’ (an Indian from Slough) who had his hands on the latest MS software. Taking all of our mammoth equipment with us, we drove for two hours to get to his house and politely celebrated Diwali with his considerable family before coming away with a hooky version of Windows 3.1. ‘Typing for beginners’ ran like a demon after that.
In 1999, the partner bought his first laptop loaded with Window 98. This of course, meant an introduction to the internet and for several years after, people complained that our phone line was constantly engaged.
Computers and the internet still held little interest for me but for some reason, I was asked within my position at Royal Mail if I’d be interested in undertaking a project of labelling the new RM2000 sorting frames. This involved knowing how to use a computer and more importantly, how to get that computer to print out labels on an aging dot matrix printer. I soon learned that I had been offered this task as nobody else wanted it, but it got me out of posting letters for a few weeks so I was thrilled. Thrown in as in incentive, I was sent on an ‘Introduction to Windows’ course. The only postwoman amongst a roomful of bored, resentful post office managers who all slapped each other on the back (in a rather 1970’s parody) all moaning about ‘another bloody course’ and ‘grandmothers sucking eggs’, I applied myself on my first course ever and learnt lots. Particularly that getting computers to print things was a shit task that had always been shit and always would be shit (and even eighteen years into the new millennium would STILL be shit).
The partner by this time, had secured a position working away from home leaving me instructions on how to use the laptop and look up things on the internet. I had nothing that I really wanted to ‘look up’ but I still typed in ‘Bodie Love’s Doyle’. I wish I’d known how to download things as some of the stories I found at that time have since disappeared forever and I’d dearly love to have them now.
In 2003 bored one slow night within my new position with the NHS, I looked up ‘whippets’ on the internet. I found some lovely items about the little dogs but couldn’t see any photographs without ‘registering on a forum’. Registering on that first forum was the very start of my journey into the internet. It’s since become my confidant, my guide, my knowledge, my social life, my everything. This of course was still years before the advent of Facebook.
In 2006 I made my first video using Windows Movie Maker. In May this year, the last vid I made used software that 2006 couldn’t have even imagined.
I’m currently doing a digital art project using software which is largely free on the internet. This project won’t be profit making, though I’ve made a few quid selling works which I couldn’t have made without a computer. I have nearly 300 000 published fictional words on the internet. I have friends which I would never have met if I’d never gone ‘online’.
Occasionally throughout life, I’ve bought myself a treat such as a pair of shoes or a nice book. Nowadays, ‘a treat’ is new software. My life is completely run through my computer. Though I miss the simpler days when we ran our lives for ourselves, technology has embraced me and I’m in no hurry to escape its clutches. I wouldn’t be able to write this post otherwise x
In the early eighties I never did typing lessons at school though I *think* they were available. At some time during my very earlier teens, possibly even before, my family managed to get hold of a ‘plinky plonky’ old typewriter which I used every time I wanted to write something ‘official’, amazing myself that I could produce things that looked a bit like those you’d get through the post. Having no idea what I was doing (or that you could buy such things as new ribbons), I think my word count was about three per hour.
Between the months of school and college, a pal asked if I’d enrol with her at a local school who offered evening typing classes. She’d decided on a late stab at a secretarial career but didn’t really want to go on her own. We dutifully enrolled, turning up to several lectures until realising that not only was the venue a cold and miserable place, but that there was a rather fine pub around the corner. Though I discovered the delights of an electric golf ball typewriter, we never completed the course and to my knowledge, the friend never became a secretary.
In the early nineties, my then partner and I got our greedy paws on a used Compaq PC loaded with Windows 2.0. It had both ‘games’ and ‘Paint’ on it so we were amused for many an hour. We were also able to load some rather cheap and nasty shareware such as mind numbingly slow chess and ‘typing for beginners’ via floppy disk. Through work, the partner met a ‘well dodgy geyser’ (an Indian from Slough) who had his hands on the latest MS software. Taking all of our mammoth equipment with us, we drove for two hours to get to his house and politely celebrated Diwali with his considerable family before coming away with a hooky version of Windows 3.1. ‘Typing for beginners’ ran like a demon after that.
In 1999, the partner bought his first laptop loaded with Window 98. This of course, meant an introduction to the internet and for several years after, people complained that our phone line was constantly engaged.
Computers and the internet still held little interest for me but for some reason, I was asked within my position at Royal Mail if I’d be interested in undertaking a project of labelling the new RM2000 sorting frames. This involved knowing how to use a computer and more importantly, how to get that computer to print out labels on an aging dot matrix printer. I soon learned that I had been offered this task as nobody else wanted it, but it got me out of posting letters for a few weeks so I was thrilled. Thrown in as in incentive, I was sent on an ‘Introduction to Windows’ course. The only postwoman amongst a roomful of bored, resentful post office managers who all slapped each other on the back (in a rather 1970’s parody) all moaning about ‘another bloody course’ and ‘grandmothers sucking eggs’, I applied myself on my first course ever and learnt lots. Particularly that getting computers to print things was a shit task that had always been shit and always would be shit (and even eighteen years into the new millennium would STILL be shit).
The partner by this time, had secured a position working away from home leaving me instructions on how to use the laptop and look up things on the internet. I had nothing that I really wanted to ‘look up’ but I still typed in ‘Bodie Love’s Doyle’. I wish I’d known how to download things as some of the stories I found at that time have since disappeared forever and I’d dearly love to have them now.
In 2003 bored one slow night within my new position with the NHS, I looked up ‘whippets’ on the internet. I found some lovely items about the little dogs but couldn’t see any photographs without ‘registering on a forum’. Registering on that first forum was the very start of my journey into the internet. It’s since become my confidant, my guide, my knowledge, my social life, my everything. This of course was still years before the advent of Facebook.
In 2006 I made my first video using Windows Movie Maker. In May this year, the last vid I made used software that 2006 couldn’t have even imagined.
I’m currently doing a digital art project using software which is largely free on the internet. This project won’t be profit making, though I’ve made a few quid selling works which I couldn’t have made without a computer. I have nearly 300 000 published fictional words on the internet. I have friends which I would never have met if I’d never gone ‘online’.
Occasionally throughout life, I’ve bought myself a treat such as a pair of shoes or a nice book. Nowadays, ‘a treat’ is new software. My life is completely run through my computer. Though I miss the simpler days when we ran our lives for ourselves, technology has embraced me and I’m in no hurry to escape its clutches. I wouldn’t be able to write this post otherwise x
