Adam & Amber’s Blog

I sit here in a room surrounded by three laptops, my personal laptop that I am using to write this post, my work laptop that I probably should be using right now to get work done, and Amber’s work laptop. Down the hall there is a desktop making such a loud noise I can hear it from here and in the garage there is the trusty manroom computer keeping a watchful eye over the tools (and supplying Jon with all sorts of data about my garage door habits). That is just at home and just includes the computers that are currently turned on. At work I have a desktop that I use for at least 8 hours a day, I connect to countless servers to do my work, and carry around my PDA and smartphone to keep me on task and readily available (mostly to Amber). Point is it is safe to say that computers play an important role in my life. Which got me thinking, when was the first time I used a computer?

For me, thinking of when I first used a computer is easy, it is a vivid memory (or at least I have a vivid memory of using a computer and I don’t remember using one before that). I was in fifth grade (which would make the year 1991ish), I went to a small private elementary school so computers were not in large supply. I would imagine for people my age fifth grade is probably fairly average for first using a computer, maybe a little on the late side. My fifth grade class had worked on a writing assignment were we had to each compose a short story (I think mine involved a mouse and a maze, and to the best of my memory was fantastic). After we had written our story we went to the schools office and worked with the secretary on creating a cover using the only computer in the school. Incidentally, this is how I remember what my short story was about because the clip-art we used for the cover involved a mouse and a maze (As I said a freakishly vivid and random memory). That was my first computer related experience, I couldn’t tell you what type of computer it was or even what program was used, it doesn’t really matter, from that point I was hooked.

The next year I moved on to a public middle school and had multiple computers at my disposal (mostly because none of the teachers or students had any idea what to do with them). This year was also when my family bought our first computer. A Packard Bell 486 from Sears. It is amazing to me how clearly I can remember that day. My dad read the manuals cover-to-cover, I took a slightly more cavalier approach of just trying everything (a methodology that still proves useful). I can also remember the next year getting the upgrade pack that included a CD-ROM Drive and a sound card! No more beeps for us, now we had dings! At first the computer served as an expensive solitaire game for my dad and a gaming station for my sister and I. It is strange to say but I will always remember that the biggest change in the house after we got a computer was that my father went from playing solitaire on the living room floor all the time to playing it on the computer all the time.

It wasn’t much after that my sister discovered the modem and Michnet and my Mom discovered how entertaining it could be to read over her shoulder. AOL soon followed with its fancy “graphics” and eventually its instant messaging, leading inevitably to the Web (a world were you downloaded the graphics when you went to the page not when you signed on to AOL). After that technology seemed to move so quickly that it is almost hard to connect how I got from there to here in a room with three laptops sharing a high speed cable modem connection, in a house that even if I wanted to I couldn’t use a modem in because seriously who has a land-line anymore?

I decided to share these memories because I realized today (not for the first time) that I (along with millions of other people) am in a unique position. There are not that many people younger then me that will have a first memory of using a computer, for them computers have always been there. If you get too much older then me then technology isn’t as ingrained in your life as it is mine. I am part of that generation (however we define that) that sat for a brief time in between two cultures, on the brink of a technological revolution that we are still experiencing. Not so young that I can’t remember life before it and not so old that I practically live my life as if it (or at least some of the best parts of it) never happened.

I am certainly not alone in this position, so what’s your story? When was the first time you used a computer and how did it effect you?