Remembering computers in the Stone Age

I don’t think about my computer, at least not consciously, because it’s integrated into my life almost seamlessly: my calendar, checkbook, photo album, newspaper. Best of all, it’s an extension of my mind that allows me to express myself almost effortlessly.

The process of putting words on paper for a living was what eventually led me to computers. In my first newspaper job in the 1960s I used a manual typewriter, carbon paper and a jar of rubber cement to literally piece stories together (hence the cut and paste word processing commands). As a speechwriter, media relations manager and publication editor I filled wastebaskets writing and rewriting thousands of words a week. It was a lot of work, often followed by a frustrating wait as a typist produced the finished news release or speech manuscript just in time for the deadline.

So the invention of the word processor was a big deal for me. The Navy office where my reserve unit met got a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) word processor in 1979, and I went in after hours to teach myself how to create and edit documents and store them on 8-inch floppy disks. It took an entire evening to figure out that the machine would not print unless I turned on the printer before powering up the word processor, and that pounding on the equipment did not help.

A few years later my company, Illinois Bell, assigned me to project-manage a computer system for the 200-employee public relations department. We chose a DEC system driven by a couple of minicomputers with an array of computer terminals and desktop word processors (before the IBM PC came on the market). It took a year to get the project approved by a corporate IT establishment that was accustomed to mainframe mega-systems and could not understand why we wanted a terminal on every desk.

The system was an immediate hit because word processing and email streamlined the cycle of writing, editing and approval that dominated our work. Some folks learned faster than others. A short-tempered colleague would appear at my office door ranting when his machine would not respond to invective. When I sent one executive an email, his secretary printed it out for him and I received his handwritten answer via interoffice mail the following day.

The people on my project team were the first to use email, and our communications were extremely informal and often irreverent. Shortly after we opened email to the rest of the department I noticed one woman recoiling from her terminal in shock. I asked her what was wrong and she pointed to an email on her screen from one of my team members that included a barnyard epithet. “That man… swore,” she exclaimed. Email quickly evolved into a more conventional corporate memo.

In those days everybody was talking about the paperless office. Wish I’d bought stock in a paper company. At first everybody used dot-matrix line printers that sounded like ripping paper. Our system at Illinois Bell had an early Xerox laser printer that was the size of a Maytag, cost about $25,000 and rarely worked. By the mid-1980s we were using better-functioning Canon desktop laser printers that cost about $8,000. These days I replace a printer when a new machine costs less than a replacement ink cartridge for the old one.

I began experimenting with portable computing in the 1980s with a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 laptop: an ingenious three-pound machine with an 8-line LED screen, 8KB memory and full-size keyboard. It was popular with newspaper reporters because it had a built-in modem, ran on flashlight batteries and was practically idiot-proof.

Meanwhile, I got an Apple II at home and upgraded to a Macintosh in the early 1990s. I programmed the Mac to meow like a cat, which fascinated my cat and amused me. Until, that is, a technician told me my malfunctioning disk drive had a hairball. After I left corporate life in 1990, home computing made it easy for me to start a freelance business because the technology in my basement was as good as the computers in my clients’ corporate offices.

Over the years I’ve had a succession of Macs, printers and assorted peripherals. I’ve opened computer cases to add RAM chips and even gave one Mac a processor upgrade. Each successive generation of computers, including my current Mac laptop, has been easier to use and more trouble-free than the last.

Most of all, I appreciate the way computers have made writing easier and more fun than ever. I can put words together quickly and edit relentlessly without the mechanics of the process getting between me and my readers.