Forward Bravely, into the Past!

This March — the 12th, and isn’t it interesting I remember the exact date? — marks my 30th year as a computer guy.

When I started out at AT&T, my job title was Member of Programming Staff (with a digression into Managerhood); at my present job, I’ve been a Distributed Systems Specialist, a Business Systems Analyst, and a Database Analyst. (Oh, and throw in whatever you call a departmental Webmaster, too. Probably exactly that.)

And then I’ve built and maintained other Web sites, as well, and RAMH is, like, my fourth or fifth blog since 1999-2000 or so.

By now, you might think, I’d be right up there in the vanguard doing the Pied Piper thing, urging everyone else to join the cyber/systems/virtual revolution.

Er, no.

Into my Inbox recently drifted a plaintive email from a young guy with a computing question. In purchasing a new computer, it seems that he had to choose between two options: a souped-up whiz-bang up-to-the-minute model? or scale back on the computer itself, and spring for a really nice monitor?

I counseled him to choose Door #2, introducing it with the (perhaps surprising) claim:

I tend to be conservative in matters of computer hardware: I don’t want my computer to make my heart race; I want it to be INVISIBLE.

That pretty much sums it up.

Which is why I haven’t bought a new computer in (…counting…) five years. It’s why I finally started, a couple years ago, to wean myself of Microsoft Windows (at home, anyway — at work there’s no choice). Going with Apple’s operating system would, of course, require that I replace much or all of my accumulated hardware, a pricey non-option. So I work at home mostly in Linux — falling back on Windows only when I need software for which there is no (easy) Linux alternative.

(I hope this doesn’t attract much attention among Linux aficionados, who — honestly out of the goodness of their hearts — may beset me with a lot of questions about that software I “allegedly” “need,” so that they may direct me to this Linux-based alternative which is almost as good or is ACTUALLY as good, if I’m just willing to spend a little time tinkering and researching and… Invisible, right? As much as possible, I. Don’t. Want. To. See. The. Computer.)

The image at left is that of a crdl (rhymes with “riddle”), a desktop toy (in the vein of those swinging-and-clicking steel or chrome ball bearings called Newton’s cradles) manufactured in the late 1970s. (I almost fell over when I found a picture of one on the Web.) The crdl consisted of a round and somewhat heavy black base, maybe four inches across, and a heap of little stainless-steel diamond-shaped… uh… not filings, really… let’s just say flat little stainless-steel diamonds. You could slowly, carefully pick up a string of these little diamonds and suspend it in space, or you could gouge a thumb into the pile, even shape it to a certain extent, because the reason the crdl’s base was heavy was that it consisted almost entirely of a big, strong magnet.

I used to own a crdl — wouldn’t be surprised to find it still around in one box or another. I received it as a gift from a friend when AT&T first hired me as a programmer trainee.

“See?” she said, demonstrating. “You put it on your desk.”

“I’m not sure I’ll even have a desk,” I said.

“Then you can just put it on your computer!”

I tell this story not to demonstrate my friend’s naiveté, as in:

Put a strong MAGNET on top of my computer? You mean this computer here, the one with all its data stored on a MAGNETIC hard drive? Are you CRAZY?

Back then, after all:

1. Nobody, least of all programmer trainees, even had desktop computers — and they sure as hell weren’t gonna allow me into the main computer room to set the thing down on a mainframe or high-powered mini.
2. And, honestly, I myself didn’t know any better. (At that point, I wasn’t sure what a computer even looked like, although I knew enough to know that it didn’t resemble HAL’s glowing red eye.) I probably just laughed like a doofus — Huh huh huh — and in my mind’s eye pictured myself doing exactly as she suggested: mounding up all the little diamond thingumabobs while waiting for my computer to, er, compute.

No, I tell the story to highlight the thin line which separates technological knowingness from innocence. Especially, note the knee-jerk instinct (even I didn’t suppress it in the telling above) to regard knowingness as inherently superior to innocence, and cleverness to charm.

For the important lesson of a story like this, ultimately, isn’t (or shouldn’t be): Can you believe Person X didn’t know that about computers? Isn’t it great that we know better?

The lesson of such a story should be just: Look — I have a friend!

Computers can be tremendously cool and fun to play around and sometimes even work with; on balance, I have to say I’m glad I “know” them. But they’re also stubborn as hell when they’re not functioning just so. The hardware, software, and network technology’s always changing, roiling, rocketing off in new directions. (Even Bill Gates was caught with his pants down — and egg on his face — when the Internet came along for real in the mid- to late 1990s.)

Oh sure, it’s possible to keep up with technology, if you just put aside things like books, art, conversation, and (yes) even spare cash.

But I’m damned if I want to put aside such things. Compared to them — compared to nearly everything, except other computers — computers are just as dull as dirt.

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[About the photo at the top of this post: The caption begins, “Scientists from RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a ‘home computer’ could look in the year 2004.” This isn’t a hoax, exactly, but the photo does not depict what it claims to depict. See the invaluable snopes.com for the story behind the picture, which still surfaces from time to time in “Gee whiz, those wacky but good ol’ days!” chain-letter emails.]