Quotable: Paul Ford Remembers Computers as Islands

I sometimes feel a tremendous nostalgia for that era of technology, even though in other regards it was not the finest hour for my family or myself. I notice a similar nostalgia in other now-older computer geeks. Perhaps the nostalgia emerges because the earlier machines—the ones at home, in bedrooms or dens—were so utterly disconnected from the larger reality, pre-Internet, pre-compact-disc, pre-hard-drive. I remember that I identified powerfully with the Amiga 1000 we bought when I was twelve; I came to know its bizarre moods and to listen to its grunting disks for clues to its health—the anthropomorphic/pathetic fallacy at work.

The Vet [FTrain.com]