The Computer And I

I do love computers. Since 1995, when I first discovered them, I have spent far too much of my life immersed in the worlds they make possible. It was inevitable too that, having found out what they were for, I should become interested in the machine itself and how it works. I have become, you might say, an amateur and ancient computer geek.

My first computer was bought on a very tight budget. I knew exactly how much I had to spend and worked out how to make that money go as far as possible. It was the time when Windows 95 had just arrived but I was forced to go for one of the last of the 486s and I used the Windows 3.11 operating system. For years I lived in the past of computing, sifting through the dwindling pile of 3.1 software for the programs I needed and watching the programmers write for 95 only.

Looking back now, I am glad that I had that introduction to computing for it taught me much. I learned to love that much-reviled operating system and I became a fanatical cleaner and tweaker of the system, forever seeking to get the best out of it. The tiny hard drive taught me to be ruthless in what I stored and I was draconian in my insistence that software not abuse my meager 4 megabytes of memory. I ran a lean, clean, computing machine.

In time, I needed more, of course, and I began to upgrade the hardware. I remember with what trepidation I first opened the thing up and how carefully I inserted that new memory card. Oh, the joy and sense of achievement when the computer recognized its new memory afterwards! Yet another world opened before me and I added more and more fancy bits until the computer had reached the limits available to its processor.

And still I wanted more. It was time to move into the modern world of the Pentium chip.

As ever, I was constrained financially so I built a new computer, using what was still good from the old and adding the new. By that time I knew that the limiting factor in any computer is the motherboard, so I went for as good as I could afford and scrimped and saved in other areas. The result was an odd creature, probably no more than two years out of date, but beautiful to me. And at last I was able to move into the fabled world of 32-bit computing; I jumped straight to Windows 98SE.

It was around that time that I started working with teenagers excluded from school. The project's computers had been used to lure me into the job and they became my responsibility. Already two years old when I first met them, they had led a hard life at the hands of our clients, but I set to and soon had them humming sweetly.

You will think me strange for saying this but it's true: working with a computer is a relationship, not a matter of taskmaster and slave. To get the best from the machine, you have to come to know it. If you treat it kindly and speak nicely, it will serve you well. Curse it and abuse it and it will give you never-ending problems. So you may laugh if you hear me talking to my computer, but the next day you will be asking me why your computer is behaving strangely. And I'll fix it for you and give you a lecture on loving your machine.

But I digress.

I worked six years in that job and kept those computers going all that time. Towards the end, they were becoming hopelessly out of date and I began to replace them with rejects from other departments. These were thrown out as broken, but I would gather them together, find out what was wrong and repair it, sometimes by using parts from one to fix another. My little family of computers became a very diverse group with different cases and monitors and a wide variety of processors and memory. But I knew each one and its quirks and preferences.

"This computer won't shut down - it keeps rebooting!"

"Oh, that's Stanley, he always does that. Just hold the button down until he dies."

Yes, I named them. It was a much better way of identifying them than straight A and B or 1 and 2.

At home in the meantime, I had provided myself with the closest I've ever had to a stonking computer. It was a powerful beast, a bit temperamental, but man, it could crunch those electrons. And it still retained one or two components from my original machine.

That computer waits for me now, in storage in England until we can afford to ship it over. Instead, I find myself on the very computer that my wife was using when I first met her. Vintage 1995. I feel as if I've come full circle and am fated never to escape that year.

But I am not complaining. We have become a team, this old computer and I, and we understand each other. I do not ask too much of it and, in return, it serves me faithfully. A while back we were given another computer, a newer one, as late as 1998, I think. But I have stayed with my old friend; we are comfortable with each other now.

And, in case you're wondering, no, I haven't named it. She's just "the old girl".