{"id":67,"date":"2011-07-03T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-03T02:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethanlewis.org\/icarus\/2011\/07\/03\/no-really-i-need-it-for-work\/"},"modified":"2019-03-31T18:39:02","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T22:39:02","slug":"no-really-i-need-it-for-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ethanlewis.org\/icarus\/2011\/07\/03\/no-really-i-need-it-for-work\/","title":{"rendered":"“No Really, I Need It For Work”"},"content":{"rendered":"
You have no idea how many times I’ve uttered those words in regards to my latest computer acquisition.\u00a0 It comes up a lot, because I’ve been a user (more likely) or owner (less likely) of a LOT of different computers over the past 30 years.\u00a0 Inspired by a retrospective on all the guitar gear I’ve owned in my life<\/a>, the following little trip through memory lane will cover some of the computers I’ve had my mitts on, and was inspired by my recent acquisition of an Apple iPad 2–which was paid for by my employer, and I need it for work!<\/span><\/div>\n

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<\/a>My first exposure to computers came from watching reruns of the original Star Trek<\/i> in the early 1970’s.\u00a0 The show resonated greatly with me, and even though it was impossible to tell how the computers really worked, it seemed like common sense to me that people could\/should use computers to answer any and all questions.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Unfortunately, the voice activated computers with colorful toggle switches were only science fiction when I got my first computer in 1982.\u00a0 My father was in the midst of compiling a book<\/a> listing every piece of software available for the Apple II, MS-DOS and CP\/M operating systems, and he decided that I should learn how to use a computer.\u00a0 His computer at the time was a powerful CP\/M machine called an Eagle II. This powerhouse machine sported a 4 MHz processor and 64KB of memory.\u00a0 Considering that my father was using it on a daily basis to write and layout his book, I needed something more appropriate for a young beginner.\u00a0 So, one day when I was in 6th grade, my father came home with a Radio Shack Color Computer.<\/span><\/div>\n

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While my machine didn’t come with a sideburned sci-fi author to give me lessons, and we had to hook it up to an old color tv, it did come with a cassette deck (for storage) and the joystick that Isaac Asimov is holding in the ad at left.\u00a0 To my undying regret, instead of working hard to learn BASIC coding (my father got me every book in the local library about programming) I spent my time playing an Asteroids<\/i> knock-off called Microbes<\/i> along with chess and Zaxxon<\/i>.\u00a0 If you are interested, you can see the CoCo in action in the movie This is Spinal Tap<\/a>, when the band are playing computer games on the tour bus.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The games were fun, (considering the .89 MHz processor) but I can’t help feeling that I missed the boat.\u00a0 So many people of my generation wound up being involved in software design, but because of my weak will and poor choices, I have been relegated to the status of “computer user” instead.\u00a0 But I have tried to make up for it by using a lot<\/b> of computers.<\/span><\/div>\n
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When I went to Hampshire College<\/a> in 1988 I was part of one of the last groups of students to go to school with typewriters.\u00a0 (Unlike my friend Sascha, who had the first laptop I ever saw in person)<\/a>.\u00a0 But after struggling on my electric typewriter for a semester, my father bought me a “word processor” from Brother.\u00a0 It featured a built-in daisy wheel printer, floppy disk storage, and a CRT screen for previewing work prior to printing.\u00a0\u00a0 As you can see, the machine was kind of big and bulky, but it worked pretty well.\u00a0 You had to load in pieces of paper one at a time, there were no fonts, and you couldn’t add images to your papers, but I wasn’t looking for any of that, so I didn’t miss what I didn’t have.<\/span><\/div>\n

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<\/a>For my fourth year of college, I had to complete a major project called a Division III, which in my case took the shape of a 75 page paper (about arbitration in major league baseball).\u00a0 My father was, by this time, a Macintosh enthusiast, and while he had never used one, he read everything he could about the brand and was convinced that his kids should have Macs.\u00a0 So he found a way to get my younger sister and me new Macintosh Classic<\/a> computers.\u00a0 This was a major step up.\u00a0 It had a 9″ screen that could show 16 shades of gray.\u00a0 As far as I was concerned, the display was breathtaking!\u00a0 My father splurged for 2 MB of RAM, so that my computer could run Apple’s new System 7<\/a> (the first one that allowed a user to run multiple programs at once).\u00a0 I remember being very impressed with the 20MB hard drive, and wondering why anyone would ever need so much space!\u00a0 I used this computer from 1991-1994.\u00a0 During that time I did college and grad school work on it, designed flyers and documents for my job as a fire safety consultant in Boston, and wrote a weekly column<\/a> for a newspaper in Northampton, MA.<\/span><\/div>\n

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By 1994 I was married and living in Indiana, going to grad school at Purdue<\/a>.\u00a0 My wife<\/a> wanted a peppier computer, especially one that could take advantage of the “Internet”.\u00a0 So we went to Sears and bought a Performa 550<\/a>, a color computer with a modem (that came with an America Online account). The Performa was significantly<\/i> faster, with a blazing 33MHz processor (a 680030, instead of a 680000) and it had a CD-ROM drive, could display 256 colors and had a 100 MB hard drive.\u00a0\u00a0 It weighed over 40 pounds (compared to the Classic’s 16 pounds) which was a nuisance as we moved three times with this machine, but big screens meant big weight back then.\u00a0\u00a0 I wrote my Master’s thesis<\/a> on this computer, and learned how to make my first websites on it.\u00a0 This computer was great for work and amusement, and during the mid-1990’s I was an ardent Macintosh hobbyist.\u00a0 Eventually, in 1996 my knowledge of computers got me a job at St. Paul’s School<\/a> in Concord, New Hampshire, where I supported 120 Macs, and helped teachers integrate computers and the internet into their curricula.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Working at St. Paul’s gave me the chance to have hands on experience with a bunch of neat computers.\u00a0 Each classroom had 15 Apple laptops chained to the desks for the students to use.\u00a0 Among the machines I supported were computers such as:<\/span><\/div>\n

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