Compute

People quickly get the wrong impression of me. At first glance they assume I'm a 'Serious Person' (Sorry. Try again.) Secondly they assume I'm the 'Studious Type' (Wrong again. One more try.) Final assumption, that I'm a 'Computer Geek' (Oh bad luck! But thank you for playing. Goodnight! Sleep tight!)

It is true that I do spend roughly 80% of the week sat in front of two screens and a keyboard, and that it in a desperate attempt to keep up with the world about me have tried to complete a degree in Business Computing (for the result of which see answer to assumption two above). But on the whole I have never discovered the power behind the motherboard. My track record with computers will go some way to explain the situation.

Back in the good old, day-glow Eighties I had just got to grips with my Atari console when it suddenly became important to go that step further and have a home computer. (I blame too much Star Trek) So I asked my parents to buy me what at the time was a top of the range home computer. And so I took possession of a sleek and streamlined Sinclair ZX-81! (Oh yeah!). For those not from the ‘Dee Dee Bopper’ days the ZX-81 was ‘the’ computer to own - for about six months. It looked cool; small and black although with a very annoying 'flat' keyboard that required pinpoint accuracy and several pounds of finger pressure to type on. No monitor either; instead it plugged into a TV. It also had very little memory for a computer but with an additional Ram pack it could be boasted to a mega 32K of hot throbbing hard drive!

You could play games on a ZX-81 but they would take ages to try and load from a cassette tape and then only to tell you after half an hour that it hadn't succeeded. Or you could spend two weeks programming it by hand, possibly copying out a programme from a computer magazine, again only to then find that you made a mistake somewhere in the several hundred lines of code. Worst still was that after abut two months of ownership Sinclair then brought out the ZX Spectrum. It had more memory, a better keyboard and was in colour!

I tried to ignore the computer world after that but films like ‘War Games’ and Matthew Labyorteaux and his ‘Whizz Kids’ made me think I was missing out on a lot of fun. So I tried again. Schools were using BBC Computers and there was also the Commodore 64 but for some reason I felt compelled to go a different way and instead bought an Amstrad CPC464 which had (get this) a built in tape recorder! I also decided to buy a ‘disc drive’ which was the size of shoebox! But again, other than play games it was a little useless. With no printer, no modem and years before the internet would make an appearance I was still along way off bringing my school to a halt or taking over the USA or making my own version of Kelly LeBrock! Not only that but about a year later they brought out the 466 which had a built-in disc drive (doesn’t it just make you want to spit!)

I finally threw in the micro towel and took up the baton of the actor instead (which wobbled slightly due to the jazz hands!) It was years later when temp work between bouts of resting meant I had to look at a computer once more. And what did I find? Wow! Not only was the key broad completely separate from the computer but it also had its own TV monitor! And all the programmes where there to be used with barely the need of tapes or discs! And when looking for temp work it opened doors if you knew Windows (confusing really). It was amazing the time I could spend now at a PC! And when I got bored of playing Minesweeper I could even do some work!

Today my job would be impossible without a computer, as would much of modern day living. At home I have a laptop and a smart phone and microchips falling out of every appliance in the house. But that still doesn't make me a computer geek. Like everyone I know how to use a computer but next to nothing about how they work. For me it’s just a tool, all be it a cleverly compact one like a Swiss Army Knife, there for writing, creating, working, communicating and occasionally playing the odd game still.

But does it make my life any easier? Let's 'assume' it does for now but check back in a few months when my opinion may well have become 'outmoded'...

-----