One morning a couple of weeks ago when I logged onto my ancient Apple II, the only response I got was a cute little icon with a frowny face. No matter what I tried to get the thing to boot up, it wouldn't.
So I went through my standard procedure.First, I went from one end of the keyboard to the other, pushing every key and combination of keys I could think of, hoping that I might run across something that worked.
Then I looked at the shelf above me at the 3-foot section of instruction manuals. I didn't pull any of them down. I have long since learned not to waste my time with that. Trying to grope through computer jargon is like making my way through a dissertation on quantum mechanics written in Icelandic.
I did once buy the yellow and black paperbound copy of "MacIntosh Systems for Dummies" but soon found that there must be a whole order of Mac users who qualify for a group below the definition of "dummy."
With the sad-faced icon still resolutely standing fast, I resorted to my standard next step, which is to frantically call Mark Oberg, my computer surgeon and trouble-shooting hero at Soft-Tech Solutions.
In as calm a voice as he could muster, he explained to me that there were several things that might be going on but that one very distinct possibility was that my hard-drive had gone bye-bye.
I should have known this might be the case. Mark had warned me about it when I decided to upgrade the memory of my old beast rather than invest in a new one.
Being of the old school, where we used to think that if something worked well it should be used until its ultimate demise, I stuck with the old Apple II. It has done me well over the past couple of years (I still stand in awe at computers in general), and I couldn't bear the thought of chucking a perfectly good computer.
But now I know different.
Carefully, I unplugged the thing, taping each plug with masking tape and marking the taped ends with a personal code that would help me remember where to re-plug everything when I got it back. Then I took the mainframe in to Mark, who said he would see what he could do.
Yesterday, when I called back, he informed me that, just as he had suspected, my hard-drive had gone (as he put it) "on a long vacation."
My head was swirling as I tried to remember if I had backed up my documents. This was strange. Losing a machine that possessed a memory was a bit like losing a person. I could revive the machine, but not what had made the machine important.
So I decided that rather than prolong the agony any further by putting the thing on what amounted to life support, I would accept the inevitable and begin shopping for a new computer.
In the interim, I still have my laptop, which I am writing this on. I could limp along this way indefinitely, but somewhere down the road I will have to get a new desktop upgrade.
Browsing through computer magazines, I saw an advertisement for a new laptop that struck me as odd at first. It showed a garbage can crammed full of laptops, accompanied by a line that said something like, "Now there is something better to do with your old outdated laptop."
Man, I thought my "new" laptop was pretty up to date. I only got it a year ago.
By now, though, it was starting to get through to me how high the rate of obsolescence is in the mercilessly competitive computer industry. Entire generations of machines pass into this world and are trashed in a heartbeat.
And it probably is affecting the whole context of how we see the world.
Nevertheless, I still maintain a bit of nostalgia for old ways of thinking. So rather than have Mark at Soft Tech just throw the old Mac II into the garbage bin behind the store, I think I'll retrieve it and bring it back home. It would make a good doorstop. Or maybe I could use it as a sculpture pedestal.