ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!
Alles touristen und non-technischen looken peepers! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.This sign is part of an entry in the Jargon File describing the nostalgia of the old indicator lights on the front panels of "primitive" computers. Since I am but a budding hacker, I don't remember the register indicators of the legendary machines on which Unix was built and the C language developed, but I do remember the time when the human eye could still detect the flicker of the disk and processor lights on computers that we owned when I was young. These days, it's extremely rare for a signal to exist that would blink a light slowly enough that it didn't appear to be a steady glow.
Then, a beautiful thing happened. School has started again, and I'm now in the 7AM shift at work. As part of this "opportunity" I get to go down to the server room every morning and change the backup disks. Looking through the window on the door and seeing rows of pretty green and blue lights on the server rack is so much fun (not to mention pretty). Which brings me to another point.
When I was a lot younger (as in more than 10 years ago) we owned an Apple IIGS computer and a color ImageWriter II printer. As I mentioned in my post about fantasy and FRPG's, I spent countless hours on that old gem. I remember the whine and screech of that ImageWriter and the awe-inspiring 4 and 8 bit color graphics on the games I used to play. I remember the gigantic 8 inch floppy disks we used to store family history files on. Here at work the nostalgia goes back even farther than that to days that I can only read about. We have a peg hanging on the wall in the front of the office with disk platters hanging on it. One of the hard disk platters is from the old "washing machine" drives. We have a few floppy disk platters, a platter from the BigFoot drives of the early to mid 90's, and of course some 3.5 and 2.5 inch platters from modern PC and laptop drives.
It's incredible to realize how far technology has come in 15 years. Bard's Tale III, the Thief of Fate kept me busy for 3 years starting at age 9 or 10. This game that seemed so huge and expansive came on 1 3.5 inch floppy disk and required another 3.5 disk for a "character/save game" disk. A grand total of 2.8 megabytes of data kept me spellbound for 3 years. Neverwinter Nights, my newest CFRPG friend, comes on 4 CD's (2800 megabytes give or take) and has graphics and effects that weren't even conceived of being done on a computer when I was playing Bard's Tale. 640x480 resolution was once a huge chunk of screen, yet now I sit in front of 1280x1024 and wish I had more and bigger to keep track of all of the things I do side-by-side.
Yes, computers have come a long way. The use-ability and user-friendliness (or lack thereof) is a topic for another day and a much taller soap-box. But for now, I'll continue to be amazed at these machines that I enjoy so much. I'll continue to learn how they work and how to make them do whatever I want. And soon, when my new MacBook gets here, I'll have a whole new world to explore. Until that time, I'll continue to pause at the door to the server room with an armful of disks and drool over the pretty blinkenlights.
