Welcome to my blog, Merrilee. I see you are also a writer, and an artist (I'm not!) and seem to be writing a novel. And you enjoy spec fic, among other things which is great. I did enjoy your post about the iPaq, whatever that is. I grew up in the generation when computers were the size of rooms and we were all very impressed with Isaac Amaterstein, who had a tape recorder, which he kindly brought over to let us record our radio show for school. Even video was a long way in the future!
Which basically means that I have revelled in every new bit of technology that has made it easier for me to write and research and listen to music. So I know where you're coming from.
I see I also have a new follower who is signed in as a number of upper keyboard thingies and while I assume he/she has a blog, I can't find it, only the others
(s)he follows. I hope I will get to know who you are, person without a profile!
Hello Sue! I found you from Ruzkin's blog, very nice to meet you. I collect Aussie spec fic blogs, I have a couple now and they're very entertaining. Glad to add you to my collection.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the era when the computer and monitor were one unit, and the display was green writing on a black screen. The first computer I ever used had a tape drive :) It blows my mind how far we've come in such a short time.
Ah, isn't technology great? My first computer was a Mac Classic 2. I had been dying to have a computer for my fanzines, which I produced with a typewriter, having to re-type entire pages, literally cut and paste and use Liquid Paper to correct. (One of my students asked me recently, "What did you do when you couldn't correct everything on a screen?" I told him i used Liquid Paper and he gasped, "Did you HAVE that in those days, Miss?")
ReplyDeleteBy the time I got my first computer, though, I was out of fan fiction and writing for professional markets. My first book was typed on my first computer - it has made such a difference to my writing; an academic friend commented once that future scholars are going to have trouble checking out original manuscripts for their books. Tough! :-)
We have indeed come a long way. I couldn't be happier.
Checking out original manuscripts ...
ReplyDeleteOn the other side, there are all these edits and versioning that you can do with software, especially open source (and Wikis).
And then there's cloud computing.
But then there are things like hard disks and as Merilee said, tape drives.
My first computer was an IBM XT (or rather PC compatible) in 1990. I had used an Apple II a year before that, so I knew what computers were. I was also exposed to Windows.
My first Macintosh was an LC II and it came to live with me in July 1994. It is still around if I want to use it, though not plugged in.
And people in small presses would type out various errata.