A start, from O to I

I’ll never forget the first time I switched on my father’s home computer. I was alone and I imagined what I was doing was very wrong. I remember the slight resistance of the red flip switch so clearly.

The screen came on with whizz and a fade-in, and I waited before seeing a flashing cursor. I’ve seen my dad type stuff when it got to this point, but I wasn’t sure what. I stared at the screen for some time and was really too scared to do anything. Eventually I carefully turned it off and hoped nobody would notice.

That switch felt so good. The texture on the box made it seem like a creation of supernature.

The next time my dad used the computer, I made sure to spy over his shoulder. I must have been able to write by that time, but it wasn’t words that I had to remember, it was dir, and cd. And wait… del.

So began an adventure of secretly exploring the mental spaces in the magical box that reacts to commands. Sometimes predictably, but so often inexplicably as I tried things I’ve seen, but didn’t understand.

It was so exciting as I learned how getting to an outcome requires many careful steps. To fully control the outcome required understanding of all the steps and it was still to be a while before I could creatively use this understanding to full effect.