First Computer

My parents got a computer sometime during the latter half of the eighties. It was this huge, hollow beast of a thing that survived on a steady diet of floppy discs. In order to converse with it, one had to consult a dusty grimoire and use the knowledge contained therein to tap out arcane, rhythmic commands on its plastic teeth.

It wasn't user-friendly at all. My brother took to it with much more alacrity that I did, perhaps because he was younger. I used it primarily to type up tape trading lists (that's cassette tape, not sticky tape) because that was during my tape trading days. I can still remember the sound of the dot matrix printer as it slowly relinquished its grip on page after page of those lists. I'd send off the lists with a cassette or two, and get back a different list and a cassette or two, and so it went. It's so much easier to obtain new music these days.

That reminds me. I had friends whose parrot could do a perfect imitation of a dot matrix printer. It was uncanny. I still have those friends, but they no longer have the parrot.

I also used the computer to write bad song lyrics inspired by the bands I listened to, the movies I watched, and my own morbid interests. I turned many of these horrible writings in for credit for my creative writing class. I actually just got an e-mail from that particular teacher a couple of days ago (on a totally unrelated subject though - I doubt he remembers those old writings).

I remember a number of text-based computer games that my brother would play. I might have played once or twice too. Eventually, the computer became obsolete. It was replaced by a newer model, and I think it was primarily used by my mom, who played solitaire on it.

By the time she died just over six years ago, my mom still hadn't gotten online at home. Then again, she never hooked up the answering machine I got her either. I think she knew exactly what she was doing.