Me & My Computer

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

25 Jul 2007 07:06 AM

Recently, Mary Ann asked me for some thoughts on computers and I have to admit, I had to think about. My computer is a fundamental tool in my everyday life. I use it for school. I use it for work. I use it for leisure time entertainment. I use it for my news. I use it for communicating both personally and professionally. If you were to give me the option of taking away my television or my computer, it's the computer that I would choose, every single time.

Staying On Top Of Things

I remember the first computer I received. I was just 12 years old - so that would make it sometime around 1984-1985. That computer was a Commodore 64. My parents broke the bank that year to give me a computer for Christmas. I was in seventh heaven. I was able to type up my research papers on the computer and correct them before printing them out on my dot matrix printer - how state of the art is that?

It would be another five years before I got a PC. I was 18 at the time and my first PC was this very slow, clunker of a machine. I loved it. I wrote my first novella on that machine. I developed several storylines and pitches for the amateur press association that I was a member of. I also started college that year and joined the college newspaper.

The Macintosh

This was my first exposure to a Macintosh and what an adorable, fantastic machine. I loved going into the paper to write on the computers there. There was also one machine in the office with a massive 21 inch monitor (back then, this was huge) and we used that for doing the newspaper layout. I spent the next 18 months mastering the use of these computers including this great little program called Adobe PageMaker.

By the time I was 21, I picked up my first high speed PC that also had a modem. I could get online. Not that there was a lot of online to get on. I logged into a friend's BBS system where I could babble with many of our other friends. I could also log onto America Online where I discovered chat rooms.

That as they say, is all she wrote. From that moment forward, several life altering decisions occurred. I enjoyed role-playing in one of the online chat rooms. Playing characters allowed me to meet many other people of like minds. One of those people I met actually worked at America Online and he helped me to get a job interview.

That job interview is the reason I moved from Texas to Virginia. It would also be just four short months after that interview and getting the job that I met the man I would marry. Computers became more and more fundamental in my everyday life. I can honestly say that 15 years ago, I didn't 'need' a computer.

Today - 'need' is definitely winning out over 'greed' because I need my computer for all the reasons I described at the beginning of this blog. Can you trace the history of your relationship with your computer?

Heather Long also blogs on fitness, marriage and Disney

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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Mary Ann Romans (26886) 25 Jul 2007 09:40 AM

I loved my Commodore 64. In fact, I still have it up in my attic, because I just can't bear to part with it.

Heather Long (16954) 25 Jul 2007 11:57 AM

Oh, I wish I had mine. But it was destroyed during a flood of our apartment, so my parents threw it out. I didn't even know they'd tossed it (by that time I was on a PC), but I remember using floppies to do everything because there was no hard drive and how much I loved the freedom that first computer gave me.