Home Computer Talk

Computers have become ubiquitous in our lives. In the 20th century, there was an explosion of knowledge across many fields and many pundits described it as an exponential growth. In a hundred years we went from riding horses to riding in luxurious cars at a pace that would frighten our ancestors. From using leeches to suck blood to a myriad of drugs and surgical treatments to treat the ills foisted on us by our modern life.

In ‘1984’ and other classic books, the future was seen as dark and totalitarian and the computer was seen by many as the harbinger of doom that would enable the enslavement of society. While many of the ‘dark’ predictions have come to pass, (steadily increasing numbers of laws to regulate us, statements from government that mean the exact opposite of what they say, new media that simply parrots what the powers-that-be want to tell us) the computer turned out to be a tool of hope for people.

It may change soon with the coming of ‘Internet 2’ which passes far more control back to officialdom, but when computers arrived, it meant a smart person could match it with the big boys – and they did. Originally just a plaything of tech types, the PC quickly became a mainstream tool.

The original IBM PC came with a 360KB floppy disk drive, (no hard disk) and a massive 640KB of memory. For colour screen you could choose green text or sometimes amber text.

Personal Computers, as opposed to those large boxes that filled a room or a building (mini and mainframe computers) moved into the workplace originally as replacement typewriters. Running DOS (Disk Operating System) and early iterations of Word and Excel, Word Processing Operators (as distinct from Typists) could type, format and add basic pictures or tables and print multiple copies – a boon for the office.

Now they are used for many purposes. They are used to run Home Businesses of many kinds, to write that book that has been waiting inside for years or to provide advice for the writer and even to produce the perfect photo

Mr JM talks about the ‘Killer App’ – he says that everyone has a use for computers, they just have to see the application that causes the ‘Oh Fuck!’ reaction. For some it’s graphics, or managing the budget, making or editing the family movies – the list goes on.

So why do you use a computer? What’s the main thing about them that causes you to turn it on each day?