A/ life

Paperport VX

MicroPhone LT

PictureWorks Copier

Cardscan SE

ClarisWorks 4.0

User’s Guide Apple Mac™ OS system version 7.5.3, revision 2

KidWorks 2

Corel WordPerfect 3.5e Patch Notes

I have measured out my life in manuals. Even though I’m not technically minded, there is evidence in the form of annotated printouts and scrawled post-it notes to remind me of struggles in a bygone ancient landscape. For example I have instructions dating from April 1989 from Time Computers of Blackburn Lancs describing how to install and format a new hard disk for, I think, my first PC, an Amstrad PC1512 – the one with the green writing on the screen. Apparently I was still struggling to get it going after five days and was complaining about the poor quality of the instruction manual. The reason is clear for on the back of the letter are some hand-scribbled instructions to create directories md#ability, cd#ability, copy#a:*.*

In themselves these mean virtually nothing to me now. Yet I must have got things going because the Amstrad served me well for many years, until I got my first Macintosh computer. You know? The ones that are so easy to use.

My first mac was a Duo210 which had a neat idea of slotting a laptop into a desktop. Released in October 1992, the design was way cool, very grey and industrial. And it worked…just, though the speed was very slow. It apparently ran system 7.1 at the equivalent of 30mph (25Mhz actually). It’s still up in my loft somewhere…

Then at some point I must have invested in a clone. The paperwork suggests this was an Apus Umax C500 with a top speed equivalent to 150mph (160Mhz) using a PPC 603 processor. Then I got an upgrade, a new processor took me up to over 200mph - unheard of speeds that required a special mini fan to keep the processor cool. I probably used a bit of bluetak (sorry BlueTak) to keep it in position.

It looks like I also installed a Twin Turbo-128 (“Providing the latest in computer graphics technology’) that enabled me to run a bigger monitor. I can’t remember much about this and the lack of accompanying print outs and scrawled notes suggests that the operation went without a hitch.

Unlike the internet. I think it was around this time that the internet for everyone else was invented and I bought my first modem, a USRobotics Sportster which delivered a mind-bending 14,000 bits of data to my little study every second. Surely the wires would just melt with all this information? Well, they might if you could get it to work.

First line: check out, type “\d\d\d\d” (up to 11 \d, whatever works for you) check

Second line: check wait, type “ost name:”

Third line: check out, type “CIS”

Fourth line: check wait, type “ser ID:”

Fifth line: check out, type your CISid exactly then “/GO:PPPCONNECT”

Sixth line: check wait, type “sword:”

And so on. Does that make any sense to you? There was a time in my life when I would marvel at the mysteries of ost names and swords – otherwise known as host names and passwords – for these were the mysterious incantations required to access, not the internet, but the gated community of CompuServe, back in 1995, according to the date on the HELPPPL.TXT file which I have temporarily rescued from the two-foot high pile of paperwork that was on its way to be recycled.

Spot On

Fax STF

FreePPP

Just listing the names is a trip down memory lane for me. There was obviously a vogue for jamming words together to create product names – ViaVoice, MacLinkPlus – and a positive obsession with anything working – PictureWorks, ClarisWorks, KidWorks.

Those were the days and many an evening too when I would huddle over my little Apus computer sending messages that would nowadays be called emails to SysOps, who would now be called Helpdesk Operatives. Some had human faces: I was mildly rebuked by CW (SysOp 71154,3221) for calling him Mr CW Good: ‘Mr Good is my father, and he doesn’t have a CIS accountJ. Call me CW’ he said. Before pointing out that it made a difference if I typed /d/d/d/d and \d\d\d\d: silly me!

It sounds dangerously like the sort of conversation that technical people have about programming, doesn’t it? But that’s not me. Or is it? The paperwork suggests otherwise. From May 1997 I have a message from Joe (SysOp 111111,2431) telling me that the initialisation string for my modem is ATS0=0 Q0 V1 &C1&D2 \N3 %C0&K4^M. Wow! I’m impressed. Did that mean something to me then? And, more importantly, did I spend from 1995 to 1997 trying to get on to the Internet?

I believe that those who want to know about ancient civilisations often find that it is through the documentation of everyday activities, such as tax records and business letters, that they discover more than through the ‘official’ records. So it is with my own history. If I want to know what I was thinking back in April 1999, I can see that I felt I needed to order a Vimage Vpower G3 240, whatever that was. I think it was the same thing as a Mactell G3 PowerJOLT TM for which I have just come across the installation instructions. The process didn’t actually involve programming, but it seems to have required the use of a soldering iron or, at the least, earthing myself via a little wire wrapped around my little finger and running to the nearest radiator. What is this? Plumbing!

This last task probably represented the zenith of my technical skills: opening up the old workhorse and changing its processor. I’d never attempt it now!

But, of course, I don’t need to. With the arrival of the iMac and, shortly afterwards, Apple’s OSX operating software, the opportunity and the need for such heroics seemed to diminish. Yes, we could still slot in a bit more memory (watch out for that static!) but the kit generally just started to work. Maybe Apple got their act together or maybe I just got a life.

My final technical flourish seems to have involved networking (no, not that sort of networking!). Buried in the middle of an old issue of MacUser (1998) I have also come across a couple of articles called, ‘What is Ethernet?’ and ‘Network an iMac’. Clearly these took me a long while to absorb because it was not until April 8^th of the following year when I upgraded my ‘old’ machine and invested in a second mac for the house, the new candy-coloured iMac. (That’s also in the loft.) Heaven knows if I had any time to play with my 6 and 8 year-old boys, I was busy installing an Ethernet adapter to my rapidly growing little empire in order to link up the computers in my house (the new iMac) and my study (the old Umax).

If you tried to get in touch with me during this time, can I apologise now? I have clearly spent far too much of my life hunched down over a flickering modem or scratching my head at whether A> is the same as A:. Life really is too short. So it’s out with the  old. A pile of paper, a pile of memories, a pile of detailed technical information of which I probably retained less than 1%.

What is important is the knowledge that there are millions of people out there who, like me, still find the world of computing difficult. So now, among other things, I teach those who are terrified of computers how to switch them on and type a few words…maybe how to open an email account. I tell them it’s easy once you know how but don’t forget your “sword:”.