1-Can you remember when you started using computers?
Yes I do recall the first time I encountered using a computer was in 1972 when I'd returned to college. It was after 8 years having dropped out from two disabling "accidents" in 1966.
The computer was the size of a gymnasium. I studied PL1 programming language and received an A for the course. My math abilities had gone from A to D so I could not pursue the Computer Sciences degree.
In 1978 after reading about advances in imaging technologies by Kodak, I assumed it was time to develop the personal PC.
I had postulated the micro chip in 1963 (three years before it was patented in a discussion in High School home room class with the fellow I sat next to).
Of course it was based on the transistor whose inventor got the 1966 patent for the microchip also.
In any case I'd recently been to a commercials filming television studio my fathers boss owned and managed that his secretary, a friend of mine also, worked at and had invited me there to see.
There I had seen the thumb nail size of the replacement of a microchip for great walls of tube circuitry, therefore it was easier to postulate small tech devices.
Coincidentally I was working on a sci-fi novel and the tech in the future was very relevant to future activities envisioned and described in that enterprise.
I hypothesized great advancements in technology as a result of the personal computer as it would make the market for tech much greater than the then limited uses for micro chips in the limited number of computers in use. This would prove profitable to techs speedy advancement and to Texas Instruments the major maker of chips who would eventually split to become Intel also.
As an aside, I had met the president of Texas Instrument at my dads home and I was sure he and my family (as dad was a share holder) would likely profit from an increasing Microchip market.
I sent my designs for a cell phone PC and notebook apparatus for students and others employed in such a manner to the Patent Office as instructed in my fiction writing class.
I then sent the designs to relevant companies.
Since the phone line was essential at the time for establishing cells for transmissions (also hypothesized, with designs for home Porto-phones from home transmitter bases, back in 1963 with that friend in high school home room) and at the time AT&T was the only company in the phone business I sent them my first cell phone computer designs.
They didn't respond and when I called and spoke to a representative a Mr. Ot denied AT&T receiving them.
When I sent Sony my Notebook designs they sent me a contract as a designer but when in my reply I mentioned ideas I'd sent another company (Sanyo) for a tape machine that loaded multiple tapes [before CD's, thought of originally by that high school friend in 1963, were available] and played selections randomly or as programmed, (before the contract and since Sanyo hadn't respond), Sony fired me for talking to another company, before I got a single pay check. Soon after that Sony came out with the notebook word processor.
I also notarized some drawings of some designs and then sent them to invention marketing but they wanted $500, (a fortune for a disabled person on a pension to pay), for market them.
I sent my Cell phone Computer designs to Apple around 1980 or so but didn't hear from them either.
My first PC was in 2000. It had been a promise I made myself for the millennium.
The first I bought crashed from a cameras bad software that I bought at the time.
The HP help line left me hours at full pay long distance than hung up on me so I returned that HP to office depot..
I got a Compaq at Best Buy, 64 megs of RAM, 15 gigs available memory and the CPU was under a gig maybe 600 megs (but I can't recall exactly what it was).
(My desk computer now has 4 gigs Ram, 500 gigs memory and about 2.2 gigs dual core)
The web camera crashed them too but the Help line got me up and right back online. Eventually I exchanged the camera for a Logitech.
I was up three days straight with the Compaq when I got it. It took awhile before I could get back into a normal sleep cycle. I got an 80 gig drive to upgrade the memory and enough RAM to have about 192 megabytes available. The machine was practical for about 4 years and worked somewhat for another 2 or three.
2-Would you say this was an easy process to get to grips with?
It was an interesting path if not always easy.
3-Since then, has your journey been straightforward, and if not, can you remember what some of your challenges were?
It was hard to adjust as far as adjusting sleeping and waking hours were concerned and hours spent on it instead of other occupations.
I'd bought it to work on novels but found less inclined to work on them then I'd expected (perhaps due to a greater need for other occupations at the time also), but otherwise I enjoyed most of my experiences and all the benefits from the PC's I've owned.
4 Do you have any challenges even now?
At the moment I can't think of any real challenges, on the new tech, that brings me down very much.
I've trouble dealing with the intricacies of lower resources and life's tolls on the older PC machine that still lives here when I'm using it.
I've life challenges in health and especially with memory that I find the computer most helpful in countering.
5 Did you/do you have any coping strategies?
I don't know that this will aid anyone else in coping with their problems but I've often allowed my days to get longer and my sleeping cycle to be longer for periods of weeks at a time.
6- Looking back, do you think the challenges you faced are any easier to tackle now?
I feel like I've become my PC answering this question. The increased capacities and speed of the computer as well as the increased stability makes much of life a lot easier.
8-On a typical day, how long will you be interacting with computer devices?
I average more than 8 hours a day with my computers usually and sometimes close to a whole day at a time.
At home I listen to music from Data disks on my DVD player or from a computer and watch TV shows with it as well as many movies.
There is a relatively cheap networked mini computer with sufficient tech for web HD streaming on my living room TV.
The computer is becoming more intricately interwoven in the daily grind of life.
9-Do you appreciate the extended functionality/increasing pervasiveness of computing now?
Yes I do.
I hope my answers were helpful. Good luck on your survey paper.

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