31 Computers

Computers

My primordial exposure to computers was in 1964 as a senior at Emory: with my double major of physics and chemistry. I was working in the graduate department of Biochemistry, and my professor had in a small room a thinking machine (which was in fact an early computer) whose working parts were tube-type relays, in a large array. They failed often and many, and my responsibility was to keep them in good working order.

My next exposure was in 1965-1966 at Georgia Tech, in the graduate school of Information Science. We had an embryonic computer called the “Dumbestron”: Our homework was to write instruction “programs”; the computer executed these at night from cards which had been key-punched with our programs.

All this “went over my head” until I re-met computers at CTI. Our president and his trusted “guru” favored Apple products, having them at home after indoctrination through the schools to Apple’s “2e” line. These influential but inexpert leaders motivated our IT guy (brought in by the “guru”, who was knowledgeable with both the IBM and Apple platforms, but had no preference), to push Apple’s Macintosh equipment throughout the company. Accordingly I was issued and taught to use a Macintosh “ci” computer. My first official act was, regarding my computer as a tool, to construct a spreadsheet of my gathered data, using the “Excel” program by Microsoft.

In 1993 I bought, at Sears, a “Performa 475” computer by Macintosh for use in our home; it had a 160MB hard drive and 5MB RAM (considered a lot in those days). There were several programs pre-loaded (lacking originals, so eventually all were lost); besides Excel, with which I made spreadsheets for all financial statements and bills (banks, credit cards, tax, utilities etc), I used the computer for Microsoft “Word” documents, PowerPoint presentations (a few), Outlook for e-mail, Quicken for recording financial transactions and accounts (I later acquired a Quicken 97 book and disc) and FileMaker (CTI used this fine database manager, and I was given the program, books, and software, and books; I used it to make a file for automobile maintenance).

In the early 1990s CTI was acquired by Morgan Crucible, who later bought our rival Pure Carbon. After a struggle over the computer system to be used, Pure’s PC-based system was chosen, and CTI’s Macintosh equipment was replaced. Eventually I was given the old Macintosh computers and peripherals, and they were in our house for a few years; Finally our son John prevailed on me and discarded all the Macintosh equipment.

For a few years, I used an old Dell desktop computer that was our daughter Irene’s at Amgen, and bought an LCD monitor to upgrade from my former unit, an old CRT one.

Upon my termination I was given my Compaq “Armada” laptop, but never used it as it was not wireless capable and had only one USB port.

When I was subsequently terminated from New Way, again I was given my laptop computer, a Dell “Latitude” model; it was wireless, faster and had a larger hard drive and more memory, and four USB ports – Ginny now has it.

I used an old Macintosh, but after its power supply failed, I reverted to the old Dell for a while, with Verizon’s DSL and router for internet service; then Irene’s husband, Anthony, gave me an IBM type computer with 40MB hard drive, and later a HP tower computer with 60MB hard drive, to which he added the 40MB drive from the other. I now use this last, and upgraded to Verizon’s FiOS (fiber optic) service for our phone and internet, with a new, larger router; our oldest son Joseph, from their failed home computer, added a large RAM chip (doubling it), installed a side cover with thumb screws and fixed the front cover, so I should be all set for quite a time.