this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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Kids, gather round. Grampa Simpson needs to tell you something about the times as they was.
Computer concepts that structure our everyday lives were not just unknown to everybody you knew, for most of them they simply made no sense.
Desktop, mouse, file folder (or if 1337, ‘directory’), pixel, distributed, packets - hell the concept of ‘online’ (or “cyberspace” to my peeps. Sup y’all) was more than they cared to grasp and they would just tune out and immediately forget anything you’d said about it.
When this picture was conceived, the amount of people who used computers to talk to other people on a daily basis would have fit in a sportsball stadium. The rest of us lucky enough to have some beige box to kick around were only dreaming. AOL was still half a decade away.
Everyone else in the world - and definitely all of your teachers, parents, extended family, any grown up not already a maths graduate - had NO idea, didn’t want to know, and thought you were weird for caring.
OK, but this was Unix world magazine...
This is 100% accurate.
I grew up in the sprawling suburbs where every other kid had a moped and a swimming pool, but next to nobody had a computer.
My giant middle school, with thousands of kids had a computer club. And there was a grand total of 8 of us computer-owning nerds. Not to mention my Apple ][e cost something $4000 (USD) in todays money.