Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Commodore 64.... Gotcha!

I looked inside a book in a bookstore today, and it brought back memories. The book is called On the Edge (Something about Commodore) and it is about 1 1/2 inches thick. To 13 year-olds this is like Victorian History. To me, it reminds me of my first delighted confusion concerning computers.

What we first bought for our children was not a Commodore, however. It was, if you don't count the Atari consoles, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Our older son kept saying that we had goofed and Commodore was the better one, because all his friends had it. I thought TI-99 was great because it could do math waves and I was sure my kids would ace calculus with that one.

I was kinda right with the older kid, but the younger one wouldn't touch math with a ten foot pole. He's the verbal kind. Eventually we found a used Commodore, on which they played more games than they learned anything.

The book made me remember the oldies like the Amigas, Adam, and all that. No, we didn't buy all those computers, but I just remember them, because at that time, I rejoiced from the heart. Maybe I'm a psychic of sorts who saw the future...my future with the unrequited love where computer technology is concerned.

My husband thinks our first real computer was the IBM XT. After busting my brain over that one for several days, I learned how to write a program making a stick figure run across a page. While other computers had "basic" language, IBM called theirs "basica." Why? The reason is as foreign to me as why the latest operating system is called Vista. I guess they want to make the confused people like me even more confused by stuffing our brains with specific titles.

We didn't get any modems for those things after a friend's son ran a $6000 phone bill. Some kids really got out of hand, in those days. (Ahem! I shouldn't talk.)

When we moved from New york to Florida all those oldies went to a thrift shop. Ouch!

Since I have gone computer crazy, we have newer versions now, the oldest of them being a 1997 Gateway with Windows 95 and a 4 GB hard disk. I put it in the guest bedroom to use as a word processor. How can I let go of an old love!

The book has quite a history in it, parts of which are rather nasty. I may not understand from computers, but I can read history.

'On the Edge' promises to be a fun read. When we get back home, I'll get that book.