John Head has written about moments in technology that make one stop and stare. It’s a really interesting topic, and one for which I feel much affinity. There have been a number of moments in my life when I have just stopped… and have been “gob-smacked” by the hi-tec world. Let’s go…

• When I first ran a program on my ZX81 (aged 9)
• When I bought a 16KB RAM pack for said machine (aged 9-and-a-half)
• Talking to my late grandfather about the EMIDEC-1100
• When Michael Botwright and I “published” our first technology article, on a cassette tape, designed for distribution amongst ZX Spectrum owners at my school (aged 12)
• The Domesday Project when I was at school aged 13. It just seemed like such a cool idea.
• AMDRUM on my Amstrad CPC6128 (1986)
• When I first set eyes on a Mac “in the flesh” (1987)
• When I first saw a Macintosh LC running a QuickTime video, whilst waiting to see a movie (1991)
• When I got my first Mac (1992)
• When I first really played with UNIX (1993)
• Discovering Lotus Notes (1995)
• Started programming with Notes for a living (rather than as a way of avoiding auditing companies) (1998)
• First colour Mac (1998)
• Jaguar (2002)
• Everything since

Phew! How about you?

Filed underemidec, computer history, history, apple, domesday project, memes