The Inception of Modern Computers, via the Back Passage.

Following is an excerpt from The Trivial Times . It is set in a newspaper/browser setting. It is a column by an "expert" in historical matter, hence the title. Some consideration must be made for the many memory inconsistencies of Mick Savage. He does his best!

When I was no more than the size of a mediocre ostrich egg, I got my first computer.
The year was 0001 A.D.

Now, no more than myself, it wasn’t much to look at.
We had no electricity; so needless to say, it wasn’t much of a present either.

You don’t get to be my age by giving out though, so I set about improving it.
There were some minor obstacles.

First going of, its processor was made of granite. While this was effective, in the absence of electricity, its clock speed left something to be desired. For this, I used a simple mixture of sawdust (Trade Mark) and other sawdust (Trade Mark). Just to clarify that; sawdust is not the same anymore and when I was the size of a hippo’s gonad, sawdust was the remains of the saw itself.

Next, I needed to make electricity. I got a heap of piezo-electric cells from my ears and that part was easy enough, though it had an adverse effect on my balance.

The monitor was made from a tablet of limestone, and quite frankly, was hard to keep clean. So I decided to boil more rocks, and through various experiments, I successfully made “one-way” glass. I couldn’t see the point in making it two-way, as I would be looking into it and not out of it.
Anyway, the fire was nearly out!

The disc drive was nothing to write home about, so I got a “fan belt” (alligator alimentary canal) and coupled it up to a perfectly squared shoulder blade. I still insist that this is the way to go! Listen up Mucrosift!!!!

There was no need for a printer, because we couldn’t write anyway. However, I did need a keyboard and quickly dispatched my fathers’ keys to the pond and used his board!

Cables were easy enough to make and my grandmother (bless her) was an excellent knitter. “When you want to knit a high speed cable, do so, one bit at a time”, she used to tell me (not that I ever listened).
I always get that one mixed up with the butcher down the road. What is it he used to say again?.....”When you want a nice bit of high-speed meat, get them, one bat at a time”.

Electricity, keyboard, processor, hard drive, cables........what else was there?.......oh yeah......I needed a comfortable seat and ordered this over the internet.
I had to! The 7/11 was closed!

That just about concludes two thousand years of thicknology, as I remember it.

Mick.
thicknology@thetrivialtimes.com