1st Writing Assignment

Luckily I can say I still remember the time of not having the internet, but once my parents decided it was time to get one of the computer things everyone was raving about it has been a part of my everyday life.  I remember going to PC source, a local computer company in Wilkesboro that carried large Zenith T.V’s and the old huge satellite dishes, but also just started to carry and build personal computers, so after a few trips to the shop my parents finally purchased one and brought it home.  When we first got the computer set up and plugged in, we had to disconnect the phone cable and hook up the internet cable only to sign in and hear that wonderful dial-up tone that we all remember and love.  For my the internet didn’t mean to much, I was still too young to care or even have a reason for it, I did play some games online, but the biggest thing to me that stuck out and same to all of my friends was AIM.  Once I made my screen name and got on, I would be online from the time I got home till I had to go to bed or until someone called my house and kicked me offline.  It is hard to piece together all the first encounters of mine with the internet, it was a tool to talk to friends and that was really it to me, and then the genius of Napster popped his head into the world wide web, and any song I wanted was at my fingertips.  I was burning CD’s for me and friends, now learning more and more about the internet and computers in general.  When did we as kids become to know more about technology than our parents, the ones who raised us and helped us with almost anything, now we are the technological dominators of the household?  Now thinking of the early years and experiences of the internet, heck yes it was frustrating, slow, noisy, picture quality was horrible, but since it was new and technology that had never been seen that was fascinating. 

I believe the creation of the computer and future internet was more like what Vannevar Bush’s memex.  It was a device made to collect the information given by the user and provided links to quicken the retrieval of such information and store it over a period of time.   Bush’s drawing even had a slight resemblance to what a computer and desk would look like today.   Hawthorne talked about how his wood stove continued to burn and give off heat, provided boiling water and keeping all inside warm while frost gathered around the window pane from the cold outside, the fire burned on and on by the man putting sticks into a cast iron cage.  This is slightly like how the invention of the computer and internet is, we as users keep providing information “sticks” to the internet and it continues to grow.  However you look at Hawthorne’s reading, it doesn’t compare to the idea of a product that can store and retreat information, it’s more of the glow and energy source of a computer.

               The internet has taken off and grown so much and so fast over the past seventeen years, where will it be in the next?  It won’t be too much longer till no one can remember life without the internet.