Thanks to Ephram and Stefan’s kind words, I spent a few extra minutes today on a book that I’m working on about the 80’s. It’s 32% done. It also needs a publisher. Anyway, here’s an excerpt from a chapter on Computers in the 80’s:

I have an old Atari 800 in my basement that I hooked up to an ancient television (the kind with a tube) just to show my 5 year old how good we had it. He immediately requested that I use this computer to do what I might with my Mac laptop: pull up a video of a donkey playing checkers. I could not meet his request, at least not with the Atari 800. I could, however, show him how Daddy once had a hobby as a computer programmer, believing as all of us did in the 80’s that this would be the crucial skill for our vocational success because the year 2000 would basically look like a bunch of humans eating soy-based product while typing on soy-based computers to get the soy-based orders to Mars. Instead, I’m sitting in a Subway watching a guy panic over what kind of bread his wife will be expecting when he gets home with their sandwiches. So, yeah, not quite.