Attitude!

Years ago, when I bought my first PC, a CompuAdd XT10, I told myself that it was probably just going to be used for word processing and, in fact, had even looked into buying a dedicated word processor at the time. In the end, though, I figured a full-blown PC would be a better option since I might want to use it for more than word processing at some point.

The XT10 was a bit of a beast, looking back. An 8088 processor, with a turbo switch to allow to to run at 10mHz, rather than the standard 4.47 and DOS 4 for the OS. Yowsa! It had a 5.25 floppy drive and a whopping 20 MB hard drive. For 1989, it was a pretty nice intro package, though it wouldn't be long before I wanted more of a machine.

Soon, the XT10 was replaced by an SX16, capable (barely) of running Windows 3.0 and I began dabbling with a very early version of Word as well as Excel. I also starting learn my way around WordPerfect, DBase and Paradox on the DOS side and even watching the occasional DOS batch file. I should point out that I was quite the tomboy growing up, so I had no qualms about messing around in the male-dominated world of early geek-hood.

Over the next several years, I migrated upward several times, even building a couple of machines myself - at that point, it worked out cheaper to do so, though I doubt that it is anymore.

Sometime in the mid-90's, the web started looking a bit like it does today, though there were still lots of pages out there with the default black type on a gray background. It was about July of 1996 when I started working on my first web page, learning as I went. I had volunteered to maintain a site on a national genealogy project, so I had to learn some basics of page creation to get the site up and running. A rather steep learning curve at the time, to say the least!

Looking back on what the internet looked like back in the 90's brings back some real interesting memories, most of which seem real obsolete now. Things like external modems and 5.25" floppy drives have virtually disappeared from the technology market. We've come a long way since the world wide web blossomed back then and I'll be spending some time talking about the impact of those changes in later posts. Stay tuned!