PS

I’ve been railing about my mistreatment at the hands of the computer world. In all fairness, it hasn’t always been this way. In fact, in a time of need, the computer gods smiled upon me. It was in the early 90s. I was at a low point personally, financially and professionally. The major investor in a company I had started skipped town with company funds, not to mention millions he had scammed through the company from banks, vendors and government tax authorities. I was left holding the bag. More accurately, I was in a mile-deep hole with a ten-ton bag on top of me. I was doing what I could to dig out while fighting off the tax courts and process servers. That included freelance writing. The opportunity emerged to do an article on singles connections, which included the newborn computer sites. I glommed onto it. A few hurdles. I had no computer. I had almost no computer knowledge, having had mainframes in my businesses and they interfaced almost exclusively with my accounting, production, etc. departments. My knees had seldom been under a keyboard. I visited a friend at his office who had access to this thing called the internet, whatever that was. He turned on this large device that sat on his desk and we waited. Eventually, a box appeared on a bulky CRT monitor and he typed in some code. We waited. Icons eventually materialized on the screen. He clicked on one and we waited. “Does this thing ever actually work?” “What do you mean? It has to load.” “This is crap. It’s electricity. It moves at the speed of light. It should take like a tenth of a second.” I am not known for my patience. He shook his head and chuckled. When we did achieve connection, he showed me basic navigation. A lot of good that did. We all learn differently and my best shot is a printed page. I had told him my goal and he called up some dating sites. Amusing. I’ll digress here about the subject at hand. At the time of my financial, professional and potentially criminal (if the tax courts were able to pin my investor’s malfeasances on me) problems, what romantic relations or possibilities thereof scattered like roaches when the kitchen light comes on. Ironically, that was when I felt a need for companionship. So, the dating scene was of more interest than just the article. Okay, now I had some idea what the internet was and an inkling of how to use it. But, I still had no computer. My friend called up a few sites that retailed home versions. They sold for more than my aging car was worth. I was always worrying about how to cover my next paltry rent check for the shack where I was holed up and they wanted thousands for a box of electronics. We stepped down to the “refurbished” market. The cheapest thing I could find was barely basic and already a generation or two out of date. Beggars can’t be choosers. I used the one credit card that hadn’t been cut off, virtually ensuring its demise. The product arrived in about a week and had a wiring map that was prosaic enough for even me to understand. It took about twenty minutes to get everything plugged together. Let’s fire this mother up. I had been told that computers come with very few programs. So, it was a pleasant surprise when all kinds of games and stuff showed up on this one. Yes, it’s easy to look back and laugh at myself, now. All that crap was a Petri dish of malware. I was able to get to the web. And, with a little trial and error, I was finding the dating sites. But, drilling down to the details of each prospect often generated a protracted loading cycle, which sometimes just timed out. The processing moved with the speed of smoke. I called in markers for some free advice. That amounted to conjecture that it was choking on its own software and data to having substandard components. Diagnostics and tools weren’t what they are today and there was little I was able to do. It kind of worked okay for my writing needs, but the internet function was weak. I contacted the vendor, as it had a 30-day guarantee. Somewhat to my surprise, he said he’d make good. He vowed to send another computer. He didn’t mention returning this one and I didn’t bring it up. I did state that I didn’t want all the junk loaded onto it. That one arrived and I set it up. Per my request, it had almost no software. It even lacked a word processing program. Be careful what you wish for. Now, I was switching back and forth, hooking up the keyboard and monitor to whichever computer I was using for the function it could accomplish. And, they were both pokey as all get out. This was absurd. I can’t imagine how it occurred to me, but I got the idea of linking them together, combining the functions and maybe even enhancing the computer speed. Of course, I didn’t have a clue about how to do this. The computers had various ports and, by now, I had accumulated an impressive array of cables. Chimp logic (my specialty) dictated that you just start matching up ports with whatever cable ends fit, until you ran out of either cables or ports. Today, with greater knowledge, manuals, customer service numbers, user forums, etc., I can’t load one lousy program without running a gauntlet of ever-present issues before attaining functionality. Back then, the link-up clicked on the first blind attempt. I had two boxes humming happily away and providing my needs with alacrity. Somewhere along the line, I fell out of favor with the computer gods. But, there was a day when they looked out for me.