- I was first introduced to computer science as a teenager in the late 1960’s. Enrolling in a Saturday class offered by a local junior college, I learned to use Fortran and the programming techniques that communicated in binary language via punch cards. Years later, during my first years in professional advertising, I was the first kid on the block to bring a computer home for the bargain price of $500. It was an industrial grade, dedicated word processor called the Pertec 2000, which occupied the space of a table top, weighed 40 pounds, and read data from two eight-inch disk drives in an ancient tongue known to us as CPM.
- One would wonder, with my extensive background in computer science, why it is that I am not an icon in the high-tech industry today. The fault could lie with the Pertec 2000 itself, which proved to be such a workhorse, that I continued to use it well into the mid-90’s. (At that point in my career I really only needed word processor.) And while I was still typing away on Word Star, all the other boys and girl were moving up to PCs and laptops. All around me people were talking bits and baud rates, workstations and networks were becoming the order of the day, and memory storage capabilities seemed to be expanding at geometric rates. A new industrial revolution was underway.
- By the time the Pertec 2000 finally succumbed to the dignified demise of irreparable maintenance (and donation to a museum), I emerged from my cocoon of knowledge and skill into a world in which I had been left woefully behind. I have never managed to catch up again.
- Hence, the quandary of a timeless cliché, once illustrated by humorist Gary Larson. In the classic comic, a dog is pictured performing in a circus tent. He is riding a unicycle and balancing on a high wire, while juggling several balls in the air, with a fish bowl on top of his head and a cat hanging out of his mouth. The caption reads, “High above the hushed crowed, Rex tried to remain focused. Still he couldn’t shake one nagging thought. He was an old dog and this was a new trick.”
- Welcome to my world.
- The Pertec 2000, iron horse of the 1980s computer industry.
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The author, captured in a moment of high-tech fascination, while providing maintenance to the legendary Pertec 2000.
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This is great, even though your daughter led me to your website, I actually have been enjoying your posts and now one of my favorite things to monitor and I look forward to more posts. I am so bummed I didn’t get a chance to come to a book signing, so hoping that living in Queen Creek will get me an opportunity to bump into you at a Church function or otherwise sometime and maybe steal a signature from you that I can then put in your book I have. Look forward to more of your wit and charm on here in future posts.