Apple IIc |
I remember using that computer for the first time to write a spelling assignment. My brother started the machine for me, got the program running, and set me loose. To this day, I clearly remember turning off the computer after finishing that first spelling assignment -- annoyed by the homework, relieved to be done, and a little pleased by the novelty of completing it on the computer. But nobody had mentioned anything about saving my work. And, living primarily in my reliably concrete ten-year-old's world, I believed that once I'd created something, it would continue to exist.
Turns out, that was no longer correct. As smart as computers were supposed to be already, they apparently still did not realize that I did not create stories using spelling words for the sheer joy of typing. I would soon discover, too -- after additional frustration -- that floppy disks are fragile, sensitive things, so even saved work sometimes disappears or becomes unreadably muddled.
My ten-year-old eyes were focused on the task at hand, on my little piece of the world in that time. I had no idea how much technology was in the process of changing the landscape of my world.
I wonder how much I don't realize now.
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