Back in the early days of computers,
I’m talking mainframes and not personal,
It was not a graphic machine
Designed to create oohs and aahs.
Enter the personal system…
My first experience was still with DOS commands
No true graphic representation of this world’s beauty
Just green or amber on black backgrounds.
Data was stored on Keypunch Cards,
Backed up to the massive storage system of tape drives
But slowly, the 5-megabyte hard drive showed up!
Whew, big time, how do we make it through?
But then, GUI entered the scene.
That’s graphical user interface…
Add the proverbial mouse we can’t live without
Suddenly, WYSIWYG programming changed the landscape.
WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get
Machines (PC’s), no matter which type or brand,
Were capable of showing you images, pictures, and my first game…
Solitaire. In fact, playing this game was how I encouraged
Dinosaur’s leaving dumb terminals behind to change their skills.
Pictures start filling the screens. Voila!
Screensavers became popular to save the monitor
From burning images on the screen,
Seen when powered off.
Today, and I say it a lot, the smartphone in hand
It is more powerful than the computer onboard
Most spaceships of the last century.
With more, we should be more productive, right?
Not so. Just like dinosaurs of old, modern-day users
Graze the jungle of social and games.
They think they’re cutting edge…
But really? They, too, are a dying breed.
