Do You Remember When You Got Your First Computer?

When I was a child, I wrote stories on a pad of paper with a pen. Then I got a manual typewriter. Then I got an electric typewriter. My life changed dramatically when I got my first computer, an Apple II that my friend John Klingel either gave to me or sold it to me, I forget. In any case he had been a Beta tester. So I got one of the first Apple computers. How many millions of words, I wonder, have I typed on the keyboard of an Apple computer? 

My next computer was an Apple III. I reluctantly switched to a PC when a computer technician told me Apple was no longer supporting the Apple III. Apple is a cult, he said, it won't survive. IBM is the future. After using a PC for some years, I happily switched back to a desktop Apple and then a MacBook Air.

With a word processing program, I could type lists. In my business, we gathered data using pencil on accountants' paper that we pasted in rows on the wall. The first spreadsheet program was Visicalc (visual calculation). My friend Ted Nelson wrote in the Whole Earth Software Catalog:

"VISICALC represented a new idea of a way to use a computer and a new way of thinking about the world. Where conventional programming was thought of as a sequence of steps, this new thing was no longer sequential in effect: When you made a change in one place, all other things changed instantly and automatically."

Files were save on floppy discs. Spreadsheets were printed on continuous form paper green bar paper with sprocket holes on each side. The green lines made it easier to read. 

IBM replaced Visicalc with Lotus 1-2-3, which was finally superseded by Microsoft Excel.

A spreadsheet is basically a two dimensional page with columns and rows of words and numbers that can be sorted numerically or alphabetically. Like magic messy data falls in place. Neat pages were printed on the sturdy green bar paper. Calculations were done by entering formulas. Excel took a conceptual leap forward with the introduction of three dimensional pivot tables. Although pivot tables became very useful in my business for analysis and organization of vast quantities of data, I never became proficient with them myself.

I worked in the San Francisco office of  Esalen Institute from 1970-1974, an exciting time to live in San Francisco. I saw Janis Joplin in concert, sat a few feet away from Ike and Tina Turner at Basin Street West, and watched the Rolling Stones evolve. (I first saw them as the warm-up band for Herman's Hermits in Philadelphia). Esalen had fascinating programs to attend every weekend. In a weekend workshop in Big Sur, I listened to Joseph Campbell do a massive review of world art from his collection of 10,000 slides, ending with the now often-quoted advice to "Follow your bliss."

But the evening I remember most from that time was when Douglas Englebart came to speak to the staff. What he talked about seemed an impossible dream, a science fiction fantasy. He described a world of the future when everyone would have a small desktop computer that had more power than current mainframes. These little computers, he said, would connect with people all over the world, allowing for letters to be delivered instantly. The libraries of the world would be available with our ability to research almost any topic by typing in few search words. We would even be able to shop right on the computer and get things delivered to our doors!

It all seemed impossible to happen within our lifetimes. And yet, just a few years later, there was the Apple II. And then word processing and spreadsheets. And then email and the Internet. And now Amazon can drop pretty much anything I can think of to buy on my doorstep and I can track it by the mile with an app. Maybe someday soon a drone will deliver packages into my hands.

I was only twenty-seven then when Doug Englebart gave us this image of an impossible future. Remembering this time makes me wonder what those who are twenty-seven today will see in their lifetimes. I pause to remember that 1984 was in the future then too.

In a television history of Silicon Valley showing the first Visicalc spreadsheet, one of the interviewees said no one would buy a spreadsheet program because it would only be useful for keeping recipes.

Today I still use Excel to keep all kinds of lists. Including recipes.