I was going to post about something else entirely today. I had done the research, and was just taking a short break to read the news (actually, that's pertinent to the post I was going to make, but you'll have to wait a few days to see why).
One of the stories I read was at the Guardian's web site. An interview with Clive Sinclair whose ZX80 was launched 30 years ago.
A successor to that computer, the Sinclair Spectrum, was my first taste of computing. I remember tapping in the code for a word processing programme with which I then wrote various university essays. And yes, it was a programme alright, all in hex with checksums every now and again, printed, I think, across three issues of, I think, ZX Computing Magazine, each installment several pages long. I don't think I'd have the patience for that task today, or for loading programmes from cassette tape!
It was on the Spectrum that I did my first programming. And later I graduated via the ill-fated Sinclair QL to Atari and finally to what we now see as the modern desktop PC. (I bypassed both the BBC Micro and Amstrad, but did have an Amiga for a while).
I'd like to thank Clive Sinclair and his team for giving me that first computing experience.
In the article Sinclair mentions that he does not do email. I was astounded when I read this. Surely everyone does email these days! But although he has found an extreme solution, maybe Sinclair's view on email isn't too far from my own. Which is that email can be distracting, messages sent unnecessarily with far too much copying going on and far to many back-and-forths on discussions which would be better had by phone.
However sophisticated they become, computers don't always make life easier.
Oh, and the article that prompted all this. It is here.