You see computers in the newspapers where enormous, costly, forbidden things only enterprises and scientists owned. mi computer however talked about a different kind of computer, a personal computer... A computer I could own!
Oh, what lovely things of wonder they were! A wonder box no bigger than a typewriter that promised to do everything you wanted, if only you tethered it to your television. Apples, Sinclairs, Commodores, Ataris... Steve Wozniak and Jack Tramiel every word, not only those found in mi computer, became gospel.
Little did I know, that the year before Apple's Macintosh had been unleashed to the world. Only recently have I seen the fabled 1984 commercial that introduced the Apple Mac, though it was subject of my dreams and hopes as I viewed IBM's big mainframes as the antithesis of that which I desired, my own computer.
That same Macintosh became an obstacle in itself because, sadly, my father lost an opportunity to scale the ranks of the company where he worked to a new employee who was computer savvy. One of the conditions before that new employee was hired, was that the company buy him a Mac. And they did... I am sure my father saw me with the same the same kind of disdain that he reserved for that employee when I asked for a computer. Of course, he eventually got me one, and also lost me to it I should say...
And that is the story of how I, almost, was part of the computer revolution... Born too late, if it weren't for that magazine... Who knows what I would be doing now. I would like to think I would be trying anyway to be a pioneer and a revolutionary by pushing the open source movement forward right here in my country.
The information soldier hopes he may have been born on time for another revolution...
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