Nostalgia

The first computer I remember was IRAC on "WonderWoman". Every episode would show Diana Prince/Wonder Woman interacting with IRAC the super-computer at IADC. Diana would say something, the tape disks would start spinning, bulbs would light up in yellow and red and eventually an answer would come out.

IRAC seemed like a miracle from the future until an article in "The Weekly Reader" in 3rd grade described a "super computer" that took up an entire room and ran on magnetic disks. There were people the article called "computer technicians" who stood by the machinery in white lab coats reading printouts.

The first time I saw a computer in person I was at my friend Ellen's house after school and she showed me how to play Pong on a computer her older brother had built himself. He spent hours alone in his room writing programs. I started associating computers with fake wood paneled rooms that smelled like marijuana and old tube socks.

Our grade school got computers in the 5th grade (1980). We sat in front of enormous beige plastic monitors that threw off about 100 degrees typing commands like "if then/GO TO in blocky orange letters.

I wonder how far we are from a retro-phile backlash against all the brushed aluminum and paper-thin plasma screens. Maybe Apple should come out with a line of 70's style desktop models with the faux wood panel inserts and chunky beige buttons with a gigantic ENTER key.

Nostalgia