Motherboards, hard drives, serial ports, megabytes, diskettes, monitor resolution, and web browsers. Only a few years ago these terms were known to, and used by, only the intelligentsia of the PC world – the NERDS!
Nowadays they are bandied about in the schoolyard, at the bridge table, at the aerobics class, at the coffee machine, and yes, even in the bedroom (where many home PCs reside). What happened? How did such an allegedly technological specialized arena become the playpen of grandmothers chatting across continents and around the world with each other and their offspring?
It all had something to do with the building of the proverbial “better mousetrap”. A number of young entrepreneurs found ways to build them and the public not only beat a path to their door but to the doors of high tech mutual funds and stockbrokers as well.
From the 1950s onward there were recurring predictions of how these things called computers would revolutionize the world we live in. Reality turned out to have little speed but strong legs. The industry just kept plugging away until sometime in the early 1990s when “critical mass” was finally achieved and the PC revolution came to pass. It became possible to produce a PC that was (at least somewhat) user friendly, at a price the public was willing to pay, and equip it with software tools to perform tasks users felt improved their lifestyle. Bingo – the race was on! And it may never stop.
It has probably hastened the growth of the world wide economy as much as any single industry. From a strictly American ballpark in the early 1980s the industry adapted and changed like a chameleon as first software then hardware moved overseas and found a home. Program code knew no international boundaries. France and Japan needed to keep accounting records as much as we did in the U.S. And so it all rolled out across the world.
And what, you ask, has all this got to do with our beloved HAL-PC? Well – a whole bunch. The nerds of yesteryear at HAL-PC are the ones who nourished the faith, shared it with each other, and passed it on to those new to the PC world. This PC user group, like myriad others around the globe have made significant contributions to the knowledge base of their members, their families, and their friends. These “keepers of the flame” found something they cherished and felt could make a difference – and never wavered from their role of sharing the word.
You, as a member of HAL-PC, can continue to make a difference into the next millenium. There are still tens of thousands in our city alone who are seeking this knowledge, this community of interest, where they may experience the joys of personal computing among friends. Share our presence with them. Invite them to come to a meeting or two with you and see what we are like. Help them as others may have helped you.
We may have traded the plastic pocket protectors, pocket calculators, and coke bottle glasses of yore for the laptops, Palm Pilots, and contact lenses of today – but we are nerds no more. We are mainstream technologically sophisticated road warriors riding the PC starships of today to ever-greater heights. Hop aboard – it’s a grand trip!
Tom Lassiter may be reached at jamesl@hal-pc.org.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.