"technology is a wonderful thing, sam."
Mar. 20th, 2018 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishAs seen on various folks' journals. I've cleaned up the wording a bit, because it irritated me.
1. Did you have a cell and/or mobile phone prior to your thirties? Did they exist?
I got my first cell phone in December 2003/January 2004, when Emily and I split up for a few years and I moved out of Patrick's basement. I needed a way for people to get hold of me and had no idea what my living situation would be from month to month.
2. Did you have cable when you were a little kid? When did you first get cable?
We got cable in the early eighties. The only things I remember from it were the cartoons on the Disney channel and You Can't Do That On Television on Nickelodeon.
3. Do you know what 8-track tapes are and did you ever own an 8-track tape player?
No, on both counts. I mean, I know that they're a media format widely derided as antiquated, but that's about it.
4. Did you own cassette tapes and walkman or tape player in high school and college/university?
Oh gosh yes. The Walkman was my constant companion in high school and is probably responsible for some amount of my hearing problems, and my chosen art form was the mix tape.
5. When did you get your first DVD player?
Unsure; probably within a year of 1999, when Emily and I moved in together and couldn't rely on another roommate bringing the TV etc. Vond the tech-early-adopter roommate had one a year or two earlier.
6. Did you learn how to type on a typewriter? Did you own a typewriter growing up?
I learned how to type on a computer (see below) but I got a lot of use out of my mother's manual typewriter in elementary school, for putting together presentations and things where the visual presentation mattered.
7. What was the first computer you owned?
An IBM-PC, 8088 processor, with a monochrome text-only monitor and a secondary "composite" monitor that had no color but did have CGA graphics, and no hard drive but two 5 1/4" drives. It was a Christmas gift from Pop Shackelford in 1982, when we were at Leavenworth. "Current date is Tue 1-01-1980. Enter new date:"
8. When did you first get email?
August 1995 when I went off to college. The year before they'd let students pick their own IDs but I guess they'd learned their lesson, and started assigning us IDs based on first letter of first name, last name, and potentially a number. Except there were too many jtaylors for their system, so I got to be jotaylo5.
9. When did you first encounter the internet?
Also August 1995, and I remember being impressed by the blazingly fast 19.2 kbps connection built into the dormroom. I was BBSing in 1991, but I wasn't connected to the wider internet.
10. When did you start using Facebook, Twitter, Dreamwidth, and/or Livejournal?
In chronological order: I got a Livejournal account in August 2000 when Jo emailed me to say "hey, you should get an account on this thing so you can keep up with what i'm doing in scotland," and started posting for real in January 2001. Got a Facebook account in 2009 but I don't remember why. Dreamwidth, April 2009, but didn't start posting to it until about a year later, after a panel on DW at the first Wiscon I went to. And I finally got on Twitter in January 2011 because that was where my writing group hung out.
11. What was your first cell/mobile phone?
My first cell was a Nokia candy-bar hand-me-down from my parents, and I played a lot of Snake on it while nominally working at the calendar kiosk.
12. Have you ever owned a smartphone?
I got an iPod Touch for Xmas 2008, and traded it for an iPhone 3G about two weeks later because what I really wanted wasn't wi-fi everywhere, it was internet everywhere.
13. What was your first printer like and the paper that you used when you got your very first computer? Could it print photos -- the first printer you worked on or owned?
Ha. The first printer I used was a Brother daisy-wheel that came with the computer in 1982. It used fanfold paper with sprocket-hole tabs and sounded like a machine gun going off. It could in theory print ASCII art, I guess.
14. When you were in college/university, freshman and sophomore years, did you type on a computer or type-writer?
When I went to college in 1995 I got my own computer for the first time: a blazingly fast Pentium/90, bought through the university. I had to cart the damned thing across campus three times to get various manufacturing defects resolved. It must have come with a printer but I don't recall anything about it at all.
15. When did you start using streaming?
... never? I guess I've watched a couple of shows with Erin via streaming services, starting in early 2017.
16. What age were you when you got your first MP3 Player? Do you even own one?
I got an iPod in 2006 when I started running, and used it until I loaded all my music onto my iPhone.
17. Did you own a record player, cassette player, CD player or MP3 player as a kid or teen?
There was a family stereo that had a turntable, cassette deck, and reel-to-reel(!). Me personally, I got my first Walkman in late elementary school, cassette/radio boom box(!) in seventh grade, and CD player in twelfth grade.
18. When did you start blogging on the internet?
I attempted to keep a roll-your-own online journal for about a month in 1998. Consistently, Livejournal, early 2001, more or less coincident with getting my first "real" job at a tiny terrible software company.
19. E-book reader -- when did you get one?
Also never? I guess the iPad is the first thing I've specifically read ebooks on, which I acquired in early 2014.
20. How do you listen to music? On what devices?
Mostly from my phone, usually on my rather decent headphones. Less often: from my laptop at home; via youtube at work; in the car going to/from the Prince George airport.
1. Did you have a cell and/or mobile phone prior to your thirties? Did they exist?
I got my first cell phone in December 2003/January 2004, when Emily and I split up for a few years and I moved out of Patrick's basement. I needed a way for people to get hold of me and had no idea what my living situation would be from month to month.
2. Did you have cable when you were a little kid? When did you first get cable?
We got cable in the early eighties. The only things I remember from it were the cartoons on the Disney channel and You Can't Do That On Television on Nickelodeon.
3. Do you know what 8-track tapes are and did you ever own an 8-track tape player?
No, on both counts. I mean, I know that they're a media format widely derided as antiquated, but that's about it.
4. Did you own cassette tapes and walkman or tape player in high school and college/university?
Oh gosh yes. The Walkman was my constant companion in high school and is probably responsible for some amount of my hearing problems, and my chosen art form was the mix tape.
5. When did you get your first DVD player?
Unsure; probably within a year of 1999, when Emily and I moved in together and couldn't rely on another roommate bringing the TV etc. Vond the tech-early-adopter roommate had one a year or two earlier.
6. Did you learn how to type on a typewriter? Did you own a typewriter growing up?
I learned how to type on a computer (see below) but I got a lot of use out of my mother's manual typewriter in elementary school, for putting together presentations and things where the visual presentation mattered.
7. What was the first computer you owned?
An IBM-PC, 8088 processor, with a monochrome text-only monitor and a secondary "composite" monitor that had no color but did have CGA graphics, and no hard drive but two 5 1/4" drives. It was a Christmas gift from Pop Shackelford in 1982, when we were at Leavenworth. "Current date is Tue 1-01-1980. Enter new date:"
8. When did you first get email?
August 1995 when I went off to college. The year before they'd let students pick their own IDs but I guess they'd learned their lesson, and started assigning us IDs based on first letter of first name, last name, and potentially a number. Except there were too many jtaylors for their system, so I got to be jotaylo5.
9. When did you first encounter the internet?
Also August 1995, and I remember being impressed by the blazingly fast 19.2 kbps connection built into the dormroom. I was BBSing in 1991, but I wasn't connected to the wider internet.
10. When did you start using Facebook, Twitter, Dreamwidth, and/or Livejournal?
In chronological order: I got a Livejournal account in August 2000 when Jo emailed me to say "hey, you should get an account on this thing so you can keep up with what i'm doing in scotland," and started posting for real in January 2001. Got a Facebook account in 2009 but I don't remember why. Dreamwidth, April 2009, but didn't start posting to it until about a year later, after a panel on DW at the first Wiscon I went to. And I finally got on Twitter in January 2011 because that was where my writing group hung out.
11. What was your first cell/mobile phone?
My first cell was a Nokia candy-bar hand-me-down from my parents, and I played a lot of Snake on it while nominally working at the calendar kiosk.
12. Have you ever owned a smartphone?
I got an iPod Touch for Xmas 2008, and traded it for an iPhone 3G about two weeks later because what I really wanted wasn't wi-fi everywhere, it was internet everywhere.
13. What was your first printer like and the paper that you used when you got your very first computer? Could it print photos -- the first printer you worked on or owned?
Ha. The first printer I used was a Brother daisy-wheel that came with the computer in 1982. It used fanfold paper with sprocket-hole tabs and sounded like a machine gun going off. It could in theory print ASCII art, I guess.
14. When you were in college/university, freshman and sophomore years, did you type on a computer or type-writer?
When I went to college in 1995 I got my own computer for the first time: a blazingly fast Pentium/90, bought through the university. I had to cart the damned thing across campus three times to get various manufacturing defects resolved. It must have come with a printer but I don't recall anything about it at all.
15. When did you start using streaming?
... never? I guess I've watched a couple of shows with Erin via streaming services, starting in early 2017.
16. What age were you when you got your first MP3 Player? Do you even own one?
I got an iPod in 2006 when I started running, and used it until I loaded all my music onto my iPhone.
17. Did you own a record player, cassette player, CD player or MP3 player as a kid or teen?
There was a family stereo that had a turntable, cassette deck, and reel-to-reel(!). Me personally, I got my first Walkman in late elementary school, cassette/radio boom box(!) in seventh grade, and CD player in twelfth grade.
18. When did you start blogging on the internet?
I attempted to keep a roll-your-own online journal for about a month in 1998. Consistently, Livejournal, early 2001, more or less coincident with getting my first "real" job at a tiny terrible software company.
19. E-book reader -- when did you get one?
Also never? I guess the iPad is the first thing I've specifically read ebooks on, which I acquired in early 2014.
20. How do you listen to music? On what devices?
Mostly from my phone, usually on my rather decent headphones. Less often: from my laptop at home; via youtube at work; in the car going to/from the Prince George airport.