I’ll never forget my first love; her pale beige skin nearly glowed and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her full-sized keyboard. More than anything, I wanted her to be mine.
The relationship lasted about a year before I was bored and ready to move on. Like most guys, I’m fickle and faithless when it comes to technology.
It starts – at least it started for me – in high school. I used to hang out with my geek friends reading magazines. You know the kind…”industry publications”; their pages filled with provocative full-color photos of circuit boards and interfaces. We told everybody we bought them for the articles, but in truth we were after the hardware pictures.
“Hey,” we’d say slyly, “did you see the latest issue of Byte? They’ve got a sweet S-100 system running a Z80 CPU!”
“Whoa!” somebody else would reply. “Really? Let me see that!”
Of course when adults were around we hid the magazines and played it cool by saying things like, “How ’bout those Dodgers?” (Hint for female readers: When a guy is talking about sports in your presence, he’s not really talking about sports.)
A friend of mine even won an actual computer in a contest. He was the first among us to get his hands on some real hardware.
It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 (affectionately known as a “Trash 80”). The smooth, silver plastic case looked like something from a really bad episode of Buck Rogers. Every time we used it the screen flickered as if the computer was having electronic seizures. Loading programs in by way of a cassette tape took approximately the length of the last ice age. In terms of being an actual, usable computer it was only a little better than a chisel and a stone tablet.
And I wanted one so bad it made my teeth ache.
So I did what all guys do when they are pursuing the object of their affection. I straightened up and got a job.
Six months later I was ready to buy my computer. I could have gotten one like my friend’s, but I needed one that was better. I settled for an OSI C1P. The enameled metal case looked like something from a bad episode of Star Trek. The screen flickered like a candle in a hurricane. Cassette loading took longer than most presidential administrations. As a functional computer it rated just above a pile of dung and a pointed stick.
And I loved it because it was still cooler than the one my friend had.
Then I saw some pictures in a magazine of a tiny, sleek, black computer called a Sinclair ZX-81. It had everything that mine didn’t. Where mine was big and clunky, the Sinclair was compact and streamlined. And memory? My first computer could barely remember it’s own name, the Sinclair offered an add-on pack that gave it a full 16K of RAM. I had to have one.
So I did what all guys do when they are pursuing the new object of their affection. I dumped the old computer and used the money I saved to get the new one.
The bumpy plastic case looked like something from a bad episode of Battlestar Galactica. The screen flickered like a disco light on steroids. Cassette loading took as long birthing quadruplets. As a functional computer it rated just above an abacus.
And I loved it for almost two years.
My lengthy relationship with that particular piece of computer hardware can be explained by my lack of funds. I didn’t have the money to pursue a new techno-relationship, so I stayed with the one I had.
There were always magazines, though. With their pictures of new hardware to tempt me with the promise of exciting new experiences – color and sound and exotic interfaces. Before long it seemed like every new computer had a floppy disk drive. No geek worth his salt would admit to not having one. Then came hard disk drives which were even better because they were faster. Just reading about them was enough to make me sweat in anticipation and desire.
Over the years I’ve lost count of the new computers I’ve bought. Many of them are gone now, but some have taken up residence in my basement. When I go down there they whisper to me; How about taking me out again? We had some good times, didn’t we? I always promise them I’ll take them out again and feel slightly guilty knowing that I don’t really mean it.
Technolust knows no bounds. It’s not just computers that drive me wild. Any cool new tech can turn my head. When GPS units came out, I had to have one. Never mind that I only ever go hiking on well-marked trails in public places. Never mind that I can barely operate the GPS and if I had to rely on it for directions I’d probably end up hiking into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The point is that it is cool tech and so I had to have one. And one won’t be enough. I’ve been looking at the pictures in hiking magazines. The newer GPS units have color and sound and probably hard drives. Sooner or later I’ll have to get one.
Even my toaster is evidence of my uncontrollable desire for cool tech. It makes toast and poaches an egg all at the same time. One glimpse of it in the store and I had to get it. If I ever saw a toaster that made toast, eggs, and prime-rib, I’d have to have that.
I’ve started reading Good Housekeeping…but only for the articles about toasters.
