I am not the techno-geek that many bloggers are. I used to joke that I recently mastered the steam engine. On a scale between Richard Nixon on the bottom—who reportedly had difficulty dialing a phone or operating a tape recorder—and say Tim Benners-Lee on the top, I rate somewhere around your elderly aunt Tilly. I’m a little frightened by this new-fangled gadgetry, but I’ll eventually give it a try and after six or seven months can usually get the newest gizmo to work, sort of. So here are my unimpressive answers to Joel Monka’s quiz at CUUMBAYA. By the way, check out some of the links for interesting images.
1. What was your first high-tech gadget?
Back about 1970 I was General Secretary of the Industrial Workers of the World. We were pretty much using the office equipment returned by the Feds after the 1919 raids—an open drum, hand cranked Mimeograph machine; sturdy Underwood manual typewriters; and an Addressograph machine with a plate maker with a wheel on which each character had to be individually selected then punched in with a vigorous application of a foot pedal. We also relied on a Victor Adding Machine. I decided to bring us into the Twentieth Century with a Electonic Calculator. I thought it was amazing. Walter Westmann, the office manager and former General Secretary who had worked a headquarters since loosing a leg hopping a freight about 1930, just snorted. He pointed out that the new machine had no tape print out and would thus be useless when he prepared the monthly financial statements. Then he turned and pulled the handle of the old Victor with a satisfying clunk.
2. What was your first computer?
Some time in the early to mid ‘90’s a friend from church took pity on me and gave his old computer. I forget which manufacturer, but it was an operated with MS-DOS. I essentially just wanted to use it as word processor. But every floppy needed to be “formatted” and I found most did not “hold formatting” when I tried to retrieve my work. And DOS was just too hard for me. Pretty soon I was back banging stuff out on my Smith Corona.
3. How many computers have you owned? How many do you currently use?
Aside from the above mentioned fiasco I have had 4 computers. The first was another used machine donated by a friend of my wife. This one, however, was a Packard Bell running on Windows. It had a WordPerfect program installed. I learned to use it with relative ease and was soon glorying in the ability to massively re-edit with out re-typing everything from scratch. I had a cheap Lexmart gravity feed printer that jammed about every three pages. I was so impressed I went out and bought an upgraded Packard Bell with Windows 3.0. and Microsoft Word. Of course word was not totally compatible with all of my WordPerfect documents, an early lesson in obsolescence. Next up was a HP with much larger capacity, Windows 95 and had to buy an upgraded Word separately. This machine crashed completely three times requiring replacement of the hard drive. Many of the floppy discs on which I had meticulously saved all of my documents also mysteriously became unformatted; leaving an anguished writer with nothing put printed copies of a lot of work. Last year I inexplicably bought a HP Pavilion—I evidently will buy anything with the name “Packard.”. So far it has worked fine. This one runs Windows Vista and I had to buy Microsoft Office Suite 2007. Result—my scanner has been rendered a large paper weight and most of my old programs are incompatible. I also discovered—too late—that the machine does not accept floppies, rendering my surviving discs useless. I now save everything on external drives and wait for those to become obsolete. I currently only use the HP at home and a Dell at work
4. How many video gadgets have you owned? How many different formats? (VCR, Video Disc, Laser Disc, DVD, Tivo, etc.)
We got our first VCR in the mid-‘80’s. It was really expensive on our family’s very tight budget. Luckily the price on these dropped like a stone over the years. Because our children and grand children broke them regularly. One grandson inserted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, another stuffed one with toy soldiers. Neither machine ever worked again. My oldest daughter gave us a VCR/DVD machine about three years ago to replace the last one her youngest son destroyed. So far it is holding up. We want to keep it working because we still have scores of tapes. I yearn for a Tivo or similar devise because my wife and I have very different taste in television and only one set. I will probably get one just before the technology becomes obsolete.
5. How many game machines have you owned?
Just two. We got an Atari in the ‘80’s and an early Nintendo in ‘90’s for the kids. I never played, acknowledging the worst eye-hand coordination in North America. But with only one TV set, the kids hooked up to games constantly meant that I couldn’t indulge my taste for old movies, news, and mindless drivel enough. Eventually kids and grandkids obtained monitors of their own and got game systems as gifts. My resident 18-year-old grandson Nicholas owns several systems and untold numbers of games plus many computer game programs. Most are hyper violent sword and sorcery or shoot-em-ups. He spends approximately every waking hour not working or eating playing these games. I am told that this is not unusual.
6. When did you first go online?
We signed on to dial-up service in the late '90's. I didn’t think I would use it much at first. But I was soon sold on the web as a research tool. And I plunged into the web world of Unitarian Universalism by participating in the old Bulletin Board on UUA.ORG, which was a lively place before it got deep-sixed for “inappropriate behavior and discussion.” And I was soon contributing regularly to what became the weekly e-newsletter UUNews.
7. How many cell phones have you owned?
Just three since about 2003. The first was inherited from my wife when she upgraded. The next two I got as hand-be-downs from my youngest daughter Maureen. All are a simple as possible and I notoriously have never learned all of their functions. My thumbs were not made to text and I have trouble retrieving voice mail.
8. Have you ever owned a car with a carburetor?
I never learned how to drive, but my name has been of several car titles for my wife and daughters, starting with an old AMC Pacer, which may have had a squirrel under the hood for all I know. But successive beaters did, I am told, have carburetors.
9. How long has it been since you've gotten your TV through the air and your internet through dial up?
We got cable service in 1985 after movin to Crystal Lake because reception from the Chicago stations was so bad. Wed switched to DishTV About three and half years ago when we upgraded DSL service. Hallelujah! for the DSL. Two cheers for the Dish, which goes out when it rains or snows heavily.
10. Do any of your clocks still have hands?
I am a big fan of analog clocks. You get a better sense of the passage of time than you ever can just looking at numbers. Besides, you don’t have to figure out how to reset them every time the power goes out. Which is why the clocks on my microwave and coffee maker are never accurate. I have wall clocks in the study and kitchen—my wife recently replaced the kitchen one with one in the belly of a comic Italian chef evidently hijacked from a 1960 pizza box. There is a mantle clock on top of a living room bookshelf. And I have an alarm. All are battery powered. My watch is a Timex with and “Indiglo” dial
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