It’s okay to know stuff. Even stuff that people think is arcane or useless – is going to come in handy somewhere! So if you’re a geek – be proud!
I started selling computer systems in 1978 while in college. My first computer sale was $10,000. It went to an insurance office that wanted to send out typed, personalized letters to people on birthdays, renewal days, etc. The computer sold with WordStar word processing on two floppy disc drives (using 5-1/4″ floppies) and a daisywheel printer. The owners were estatic! It saved so much time and money.
Sure I started with floppies. First the 8″ (for accounting applications) then the 5-1/4″, and finally, the 5 MB hard drive. We could not imagine what anyone would want with more than 5 MB of storage. We took the Intertec Superbrain and stuffed them with 5MB hard drives, then 10MB and finally 20MB. We were the monster trucks of PCs in those days.
I started with C/PM, then DOS, UNIX, Windows, and Apple.
Of course, there is more — but I wanted to share a little of the ancient history of microcomputers.
My interest in technology has continued full force. So from time to time I will post on my experiences with all things technical. For example, I have a 17″ Mac Book Pro with Parallels running Microsoft XP. I have an iPhone, a SmartPen from Livescribe, and am getting my vertebrae decompressed on the latest Axiom DRX 9000!
So thanks for listening to my story. Yes, floppy discs really were floppy. I’m really that old…
Ray
Wow, floppy disks… takes me back. And now we have zip drives and Wi-Fi!
I really am that old, too. My 1st computer (that I bought myself) was a Mac with hard floppies, but I used a PC with real floppies at work. I wrote an accounting program in DOS with our accountant–what a pain it was in those days! Like you I’m a jack of all trades, a consultant/welfare case, depending on who you talk to. I’m a geek because I have to be…though the truth is, I’m a marketing geek–perhaps the most loathed of all.
Enjoyed visiting your site. I’d love to see more about the powwows.
Geek, yeah, I’ll embrace that title.