What, me talk about technology?
By Patricia Bunin, LA Daily News
“Mom, why would anyone interested in technology want to hear you speak?” daughter Sara asked when I told her I had been invited to give a talk at TUGNET (The Users’ Group Network). President Marian Radcliffe had asked me to address how I, as a writer, had tackled technology. It soon became clear that technology had tackled me.
When she sent me a list of available AV equipment and asked which ones I would need for my presentation, I knew I was in trouble. “None,” I replied, since I didn’t even know what most of them were.
So I brought my own equipment: my 1960s portable typewriter, a yellow pad and pencil, and my husband. Then I told some of what I call my “Tall Techno Tales,” including this one.
By the time my husband George and I got together 28 years ago, I had proudly, though not easily, transitioned from my manual typewriter to an IBM Selectric.
As men often do, George believed he could upgrade me. After much ado, including marrying me, he finally persuaded me to buy the high-tech-for-its-time Magnavox Video Writer, one of the early word processors. It was great. Bye-bye, correction fluid. Just press a key for corrections. No more carbon paper. Just push “Print.”
Naturally, on the night before a big story was due, the machine refused to print. After an all-nighter spent transcribing the text from the small amber screen to the Selectric, I was tired and vulnerable.
George saw his opportunity and moved in for the kill. He said I had already learned all the hard stuff on the word processor. The transition to a computer would be a snap.
On the day that the computer moved into our home, I almost moved out. Because my columns are published in family newspapers, I was never able to write about the conversations that ensued that day. Or during the long months that followed. Eventually, George and I started speaking again.
And hence I found myself two decades later telling non-tech stories to a gracious group of techies.
Lucky for me, their only requirement was that I make them laugh.