My parents couldn’t afford a computer when I was growing up (I typed my applications of a typewriter!), so my first real interaction with computers happened when I went to college in 1998. For three years, I used the computers at the library, and I lost a total of 5 essays due to computer mishaps: my floppy would break, the computer would malfunction, or the printer would somehow print my essays in a strange coded language.
When I was a senior in college I finally had saved enough for a computer: a compact, yet extremely heavy Gateway. I realized after I had a computer what a privelege it was to write on my own time, rather than the library’s, and in my own space, whether that space was outside, in my dorm room, or in the airport. Many people in this technological age take computers for granted, and I think it’s still important to realize that computers are a privilege, available to some yet not to others because of class inequality.
In any case, that computer went with me to England for a year, traveled all over Europe, and finally settled in Japan on a tiny subtropical fishing island for two years. It connected me to friends through IM no matter the hour, it saved on telephone costs, and the fact that I had it encouraged my parents to invest in a computer and to start emailing.
The 2000 Gateway is still alive in all of its bulkiness and outdated software: I was recently told that I had never gotten a virus on my computer because I had such an old version of Windows! I’ve recently added a new computer to the family (after six months of hemming and hawing and rabid internet searches for that review that would cause me to immediately drop over $1000 on a piece of equipment that I didn’t really need since my old computer technically worked). It’s a Mac, the cool new one with video-conferencing capabilities, a music creator, and various other applications that, in my hectic life as a graduate student trying to write articles, seminar papers, and comments on student papers, I haven’t had time to explore. But the capability is there, and I have recently ventured into website production, using it in my 111 classroom with students who are more technologically literate than I am! What a long way from the old typewriter!
