While cleaning out my old YUKU site I came across an old post of mine that I'd written in 2010. I read through it and debated between deleting it or preserving it. I have made some small updates to it to reflect the difference in years and added a couple of small references to show the time line.
Seeing the messages about changes and how they're impacting us makes this seem appropriate to share.
Simply titled, Written in 2010, it's now been 37 years.
Way back in 1980 I stumbled across these interesting items called bulletin board services. They were fun things where people could post messages, have discussions, chat directly with system operators, get help with computer issues. Kind of fun in the early days for this old bird. Back then I had a fun time doing various things, learning as I went.
Though not my first experience with computers I can honestly say that I had my most fun with my early Amiga 500. A beautiful classy machine with a lot of power for its day. Graphics that couldn't be beat, even today comparatively speaking, some machines don't really match the speed and ease those chips had. I learned a lot from that old machine and my first 286 machine
Those were the days before windows. Knowing DOS, C, assembly were the core bits for serious machine buffs. I wasn't really good with the programming languages but the operating system lingo, DOS was another story. I wrote many batch files before Windows came along. There were files that would do all sorts of wonderful things for you as your computer started up. I even had multiple options for different things to load based on input commands I would give the machine. Memory was at a premium then. Every little bit helped but we thought those machines were fast.
Then came to the 386 and the 486 and the introduction to windows 3.1. I didn't have anything to do with using previous Windows versions. At the time, in the interests of speed and intelligent workings, when asked to deal with issues on the machines dealing with Windows 3.1 the first thing I did was shut windows down and work entirely in DOS. It was still a lot cleaner and faster than anything Microsoft gave us.
Then came Windows 95 and the P1s. I let others mess around with the early versions of 95 staying faithful to the old DOS system that I had learned so well. Eventually though, my systems became outmoded and just couldn't keep the pace with the new tech coming out so I upgraded to a P1 366 system running windows 95 with a whopping 4.1GB hd.
It was about then I took a real interest in computer sound files. Making them was a learning experience. I laugh now when I think of how proud we were of the old compressed high quality .wav files we made. I listened to one of them recently and the difference between it and a standard mp3 128 bit file is like listening to 1930s radio vs a broadcast today.
I became interested in the 'new' chat too. I had done some experimental testing with chats but nothing really made me ready for the different programs that quickly became available with the new windows versions. I really took a liking to the MS Chat despite its issues. Pirch was interesting too, the others I didn't really take to very well. That was mostly because I didn't understand them.
It was around that time that I took an interest in writing again. I started playing a bit with some light poetry that slowly grew as did my collection of music. Things were not so tightly wound up back then as the new mediums caught everyone by surprise and took the net by storm. Eventually the money grabbers sought out legal means for one thing or another in an effort to choke the life out of file sharing at first, then turning their attentions to the broadcasters, a battle that still rages on today.
That is getting a bit ahead of things though. While bringing back to life my love of writing, my love of music was taking on a whole new dimension. I'd always liked a good mix but I really liked a lot of the experimental stuff that was going on, though I wasn't up to speed on all of it. My attention wasn't well focused in that direction for some time. I had taken something of an interest when I was younger but not to the extent of the fire catching that struck in the 80s. A lot of different mixes came out then and those mixes had a profound influence on not only my desires to write but my subject matter as well. I had other influences then too but many of those are now somewhat hazy owing to events we're all familiar with from late 2003. (The year I had the stroke that hurt my memory centers)
I know, the windows events and expansions were in the 90s and I'm talking about music from the 80s. I was a tad occupied with a lot of things in life in the 80s and didn't get the full exposure that I'd have liked to have had then. The openness of the net through the MS chats changed a lot of that.
In a number of ways, I was back catching things I had missed through the 80s. I married young, we'd had two children, life was up and down, struggles most of the time, good/bad/ugly and that was just the first five minutes looking in the mirror. Also through most of the 80s I worked a lot of shift work. That takes a toll and wears a person down.
After 2003, I was playing catch up, regain and on top of that, learning new things. I have some memories of being a chat host. I like what I remember of it. I like a lot of what I had been able to write, and in some ways, I really do miss the live chats of those days when I could write on the fly without having to think too much. Such a great flow I was blessed with then and at times still am but it's not really the same anymore. The world is always changing, whether we like it or not. One of life's lessons I have learned and still don't like. At least I have learned to accept it.
Back to the 90s. After a decade of messing about with computers and playfully testing out different web browsers the package with Windows 95b was an attractive package. I still have my old 95b cd
(I don’t have it anymore 2017) The P1 it ran on lasted me well over 12 years or more. I was really saddened when it finally gave up the ghost in the early 2000's but I was sure proud of that machine and how well I'd learned it. I got it to do things it was never meant to do.
After watching quietly for a few years and seeing all the issues and problems and battles over the various windows 98 and M.E. I finally saw something out of MS that was pretty good and solid but somewhat of an overkill for me. Windows N.T. When XP came out though I made the full change. Upped the machine to a P3 with a solid XP version. I still use a couple of versions of XP on the machines I have today (that was in 2010) but there are a few differences compared to other XP's in use. Win2K was a close 2nd choice for me. Vista was never a consideration and Win7 doesn't really let me get into the baseline stuff of the machine like I like to do. On the other hand, that is the way the world is moving and more so into the cloud computing <o.s. being the web> so eventually I'll have to adapt.
Chats came and went, time moved on, change followed change, health failures started for me in 2000 and grew steadily worse until the collapse I'd had in 2003. Eventually the changes became a little more than cared to want to live with. I stopped chatting for a little while, posting etc. until I was asked to lend a hand with a few things here and there. I did but I wasn't the same anymore. The love and fun hand gone out of everything.
After the long healing process, I started to get interested in things again, including life. By 2005 I was in full swing again but it wasn't going to last very long. The world had changed even more than I had believed. A couple of incidents were enough to convince me that it was time to stop playing by other people's rules and to play by mine.
I broke away from all the old ties, main streams, with a couple of exceptions and set out on my own. The next couple of years from 05-07 sort of showed me who I could have faith in and who I couldn't. A major relapse and again a total loss of interest in everything led to me tossing everything aside again as I battled a relapse. The relapse lost and was held at bay by a narrow margin.
Everyone knows what happened when MSN announced their closure, yet one more change in a world that was changing under me. This one though, I didn't seem to care at all. I only wanted to save what was left of my involvement in two of the MSN groups I had founded. I had asked and it happened that all my writings were deleted from other groups where I'd posted them.
Some of course had been lost over the years but most of them are here. With Maggie's help, we moved entire contents of five communities over here (YUKU) in what was a major rescue operation. I had set this up (site on YUKU) and prepped for the msn closure. Nothing fancy, just a basic board. Originally there was another spot that had better features but it had the drawback of rolling over the messages something like every 50 or so. That was just not on because we had so many to get in place. (Over 2,000)
Yuku seems to have worked out fairly well now. Though I am still not fond of YouTube and will always carry a special dislike for it, I'm not above making use of it <G>. It is still one way to share up music we love. Especially now that the station has been permanently shut down. (Heart of the Phoenix net station) I can truthfully say I loved every minute of the castings, including some of the classic live on-air errors. There are times I miss it but I don't think I'd do it again. There is a little truth in 'You can't go home again'.
I managed to rebuild my abilities to write again. They got a little thin when I did management work with MSN. I hated letting it go but I had no time for it then. In retrospect doing that was a mistake. My writings should have taken priority. My life should have taken priority. It damn near killed me. I was lucky it didn't. I was lucky that I didn't lose what I'd worked hard to recapture in my writings. I was lucky that I found time to learn how to do html coding for webpages. That I found time to create, found places to support the art, give a few classes, take some REAL ME time to do things I'd always wanted to do.
I have to chuckle at myself sometimes. After being involved with all this net stuff for 30 years you'd think I'd learn that there are up and down periods to it all. That I shouldn't let others’ stupidity bother me in the least. That some people are simply barbarians at heart and nothing will ever change that in them, regardless of what face they show to the world. We live with spam, here, there, in our mail boxes and email boxes. At least we've not been getting any here for quite some time! Lord do I hate spam!
I really didn't think I'd see 30 years of being on line. (37 now) There are not very many who are aware of this but about five years ago I was ready to call it quits. (2005) It was a very near thing. I don't know what future changes will be taking place but I think I'd at least like to see them, and hope, very very much hope, that things like FB fade to fad (sadly, didn’t happen) and are replaced with something with more options, more intelligence and definitely more sense of privacy. Somehow though, I think those days are now gone.
I have many wonderful friends here and love coming here. 