Moone and Timolin

Moone and Timolin are villages close to each other in the south of Co.Kildare. My cycle ride this afternoon took me past a signpost that announced I was within a few km of these villages and this brought back memories of purchasing my first PC, as mention of either village always does.

My track, 38.2 miles, 12.45mph average

My route was "go anywhere you like but keep away from Dunlavin". Which you will see from my track that I did very successfully. It's not that there is anything particularly wrong with Dunlavin, just that all roads in this area appear to lead there and it is thus a struggle to keep away.

So - my first PC. This was shortly after my decision to start an electronics design consultancy, Microlite. Having used a multi-user computer in my work for the BBC I at least knew that I needed one but not much else. I left the BBC in 1981 and in the next 7 years before Microlite I was totally out of touch with the world of electronics. During those years I did other things like learning to live in a community, building work, picking potatoes, a painting and decorating business, teaching people to drive, I even helped to cook a meal for a restaurant. And during those years I was oblivious to the birth of the PC.

The decision before me was the lower cost Amstrad PCW which used the CP/M operating system, or the IBM PC. Thankfully I chose the latter. I can't remember how one did market research back then before the dawn of the internet, but somehow I found this outfit in Moone. I must have seen an advert somewhere because I can still sort of picture the front of this XT desktop. And I longed for an excuse to go to Moone to see it for myself and possibly purchase. Back then one couldn't just jump in a car on a whim - money was short and getting permission was the order of the day. How things have changed since then! In the event I ended up buying a PC-AT (286 processor) from a company in Dublin. I remember asking them what colour it was, which bemused the salesperson somewhat - "computer colour of course".

I chose a Hercules graphics card and monochrome monitor in colour orange, though virtually all of my work was text based. Later, when I purchased my first PCB-CAD software, I got a CGA monitor which boasted a resolution 320×200 in 4 colors. How things have changed since then!

First

The latest craze here is running, albeit not barefoot yet. Did I start this craze? Before that it was growing a beard for which thankfully I cannot be held responsible. But what about...

I was the first in the community here to own a computer (PC-AT-286 running MSDOS with Hercules graphics) and a "high quality" printer (Epson LQ500 24-pin dot-matrix). I was the first here to write computer programs (in GWBASIC). First to run Windows (version 2). First to obtain and use an internet connection (dial-up back then). One of the first to own a mobile phone. First to buy a printed OS map of the locality. First to own a GPS navigation device (off-line). First (and only) to run barefoot, or to cycle to the coast and back. First to weed the vegetable plots barefoot (but this is now catching on). First to own a digital camera (I think) - they are now so ubiquitous that I hardly ever bother to get mine out.

With all those firsts one might think I was someone but, no, others here have caught up and overtaken me. They mostly have expensive Apple Mac's, large flat screen TV's, play graphics-intensive games that would fry my computer (and my brain), they have iPods and iPads and tablets and Kindles. Some have reflex digital cameras and most have cameras with specs that exceed mine. They own the latest smart-phones and download zillions of apps and pay for data-plans that permit on-line navigation. They (some) do crazy runs and work-outs (admittedly not barefoot). One person writes object oriented multi-threaded computer programs and others use their computers to do clever video editing or 3D computed aided designing.

Such is growing up.