iSwitchd

Let’s go back in time, in 1990 precisely. Why this year? Well… that’s when I got to ‘play’ with computers for the first time, and caught the ‘computer virus’.

So in 1990, my mom bought a PC, an old one, it was already outdated (an 8088). She purchased it in order to make her accounting easier. In fact, she almost never used it. But as I was learning at school how to use PCs, I was more than happy to have one at home to practice on!

I remember some of the specs:
- 4 MHz processor
- hard drive of 20 MB
- 360 KB floppy drive - couldn’t fit much on those!
- 4 color screen - 16 colors total, 4 simultaneously
- the video card was so long it took the entire depth of the case to fit in
- can’t remember the amount of RAM, might be around 640 KB

And some of the software that was on it:
- MS-DOS 4
- Windows 2
- Word 5 for DOS
- Word 2 for Windows
- Excel 2 for Windows

Yes, all of this could fit on 20 MB!

I played games on it (an Arkanoid clone, Blockout, Flight Simulator 3, and a couple others), learned english with an educational software, some light BASIC programming, and worked on Word and Excel as well. I remember I managed to change the copyright on the Windows startup screen, to display my name instead of Microsoft!

In 1990, not everyone had a computer, and the ‘lucky’ owners were usually considered as geeks, or aliens should I say. At school, I was in the group of “the guys who had computers”, other kids kinda ignored us, or pointed the finger at us. It’s like we were in our own world.

Things have changed in 18 years, and now almost everyone in the developed world owns a computer. If you don’t have one, fingers are pointed at you.

Why am I talking about this here?

When I got that PC, I was excited about everything I could discover on it. I was very curious, and tried any application I could get, and changed any the setting I found, to understand what they meant. However that excitement faded with time, even though I got new computers or new software, I got used to it and knew their weaknesses.

But since I got my first Mac, a year ago, that enthusiasm came back. Not only I’m discovering a new environment with OS X, but it opened my eyes on other stuff, like some amazing web services. I feel I’m getting back to the beginning and that’s great experience.

That old 8088 is still in my mom’s attic. Last time I checked (about 6 years ago), it was still booting. I enjoyed that PC, but my friends had faster ones, so I had to upgrade… but that story is for a next time.