In wading through various blogs today, I came across one that prompted the writer to write about their first computer. Since I teach teenagers and young adults the topic of my first computer and how internet usage was not widespread while I lived in Japan often comes up. I thought it might make for an interesting story or rant–I can’t be sure until I start typing.
My first computer was a 386XT. It had a huge hard drive of 30 megabytes. It had a monochrome colour screen–I opted for black and white despite the fact that either green or yellow were quite fashionable at the time. It had a 5 and 1/4 floppy drive and did have an operating system called gemdesk–which I have been told was the basis of windows 95, but this may or may not be true. I should also point out that the whole thing cost me about 2000 dollars.
I was woefully unprepared to use the computer and only used it for word processing (anyone remember Word Perfect?) and playing double dragon in single player mode. As my handwriting was bad, the word processing was a wonderful enhancement to my life and the lives of my teachers.
I hauled that computer to university with me and I was able to add both Arknoid and Jeopardy to my collection of games. While these games did not put my grades in any kind of bind (Physics and Calculus did that by themselves) they did entertain me to some degree.
The computer and dot matrix printer (with tear off sheets) was still working when I got back from three years in Japan. I printed my hastily updated resume to get my first ESL teaching job in Canada.
Since then I have been through two desktops and I am typing this on my second laptop. There is also a tablet still going strong, but used infrequently. I should also point out that my phone has a bigger memory than my first computer and can do so much more.
When we finally get flying cars, I will have to write about my first car.
Today's Perfect Moment 
Things do change! My brother built a rudimentary computer in the late 1970s (needless the to say he was a genius child) and rigged it up to our black and white TV. I know nothing of the spec and all I did was play ping-pong on it. I think it was probably quite dangerous with all the wires hanging out the back.
I’m happy to hear you were able to use the word processor for your handwriting, my brother was taught to type just so he could do his exams because his writing was appalling. Not everyone agreed with it at the time and my parents had to fight his corner.
When I bought a smart phone recently my father commented “there is more tech in that than, put a man on the moon!” Hey ho!