I remember these days.

In 1980, the Apple II computer that sat on a desk in the corner of my dining room had my neighbors thinking that I was a complete freak. To hear them talk, you’d think I had a centrifuge on my kitchen counter. And it was not because the computer was in the dining room or because it was an Apple.

Another one of those huge cultural shifts that for some reason causes people to insist that how things are now is the way it’s always been.

But I remember when having a computer made you weird. Like, really really weird.

It was like having a nuclear reactor or as she points out as a centrifuge in your house. And people would say, “Why are you wasting your time with computers? You’ll never find a good job playing with those things. Learn some real skills.*”

So glad I kept playing with those useless computers.

*Almost a direct quote by several people to me when I was young.