37 years ago, I sat in front of a green screen with a keyboard at my fingertips.
Over the decades, the green screen gave way to color monitors and a mouse came to the aid of the keyboard, but I still sat there, staring at a screen, living in another world. For the better part of my almost 4 decades long career, I could of been talking Martian when it came to explaining what I did for a living.
Finding someone who knew the difference between Disk Space and RAM was a challenge. I sat at parties not ever having anyone to talk to about algorithms, or compile times. Yeah I’m a Computer Programmer I would say, that deer in the headlights look was the reaction.
3 years ago, I decided to walk away from the LCD screen, become a part of humankind. What did I find?
Well lo and behold, humans now have hand held computers that they can’t keep their fingers and eyes off of. Hell, I thought I was addicted to screens, but these inhabitants of Earth appear to have just discovered the wonders of the Net, something many of us techies have been on since the 90’s.
Yeah, when the Net came alive, I was glued to the screen, extolling the virtues of new found knowledge. Everyone would look at me and tell me I was wasting my life on that there computer, go out, breath some fresh air. Those same people can’t even carry on a conversation now without glancing at their hand held device between sentences.
So I’m back to the LCD screen, the hand held is nice and all, but I likes my keyboard, and after all, humans have now been assimilated. They still don’t know the difference between Disk Space and RAM, but at least they know what it’s like to stare at a screen all day.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’