8K Should Be Enough For Anyone

August 1999

I found a book in my local library's discard rack entitled "Mastering the Commodore VIC-20", (copyright 1983, ISBN 0830616128). Below are a couple of passages from it. If you're under 25 and into computers, get ready for a history lesson. If you're a computer veteran over 25, these quotes should make you reminisce rather unfondly about the days of external 5.25" floppy drives, screen burn-in, out-of-memory errors, and green monochrome displays.

First, for the non-PC-obsessives, it's reference point time. I'm typing this paragraph on what's currently considered a decent low-end machine: a Pentium II with 32 megabytes of RAM (that's 32,896K), 640K basic memory, a hard disk with 5000 megabytes of space (that's 5,140,000K), and a CD-ROM drive that reads 750 megabytes (771,000K) of info. If we know the altitude before we leap, it's easier to appreciate the drop.

OK, get ready for a bumpy ride as Sherman sets the Wayback machine for 16 years and we present the cutting edge of consumer technology in the era of "Falcon Crest," "Reaganomics," and Kajagoogoo.

"If you think your VIC-20 is simply a game machine for playing computerized tapes, think again! Yours is an amazingly powerful computing machine capable of all kinds of exciting home and business applications..." Like, er, Pong! Yeah! And, uh, Pong 2.0! Great! How about Pong-NT For Workgroups?

"You get the computer itself, which looks like half a typewriter, and a tape-recorder called a Datasette." Now it'll only take me a half-hour to load Pong. Barring power outages, of course.

"The box contains...a small polished metal item...known in the knowledgeable circles you have joined as the TV/Game switch... (A)ttach the TV antenna leads to the screws on your game switch." Yes, Junior, back in 1983 BC (Before Cable-ready), there was a time when people had to wire their TVs to large aluminum sticks to get a picture.

"There will be occasions when you will wish you had more memory. It does not matter how much you have; there is no real need to go rushing out to buy another 8K and mother board to put all the cartridges in..." Unless, of course, you want to go beyond the "10 PRINT" - "20 GOTO 10" infinite loop trick.

"Computers are individuals and not all will program the same way." Apparently the reason the VICs were so slow was because of their moody existentialist CPUs that spent their time pondering the true nature of the PRINT command.

"For the convenience of VIC-20 owners, Commodore has produced a cartridge called the Super Expander. Not only does this cartridge supply you with 3K extra RAM, but it also (has)...extra instructions to make your programs run faster." Now I can finish that 100-name bubble sort in just three days. That's half the time.

"Quite a lot can be done with the 6.5K you now have. The first thing is to discuss a program that makes use of the Super Expander, ... printed in the small manual that comes with the cartridge. The typesetter made one or two errors which means the program will not run." Ok, so some things never change.

"It was much easier in the days when all programming was done in machine code." Sure. Rather than using near-English commands, it's much simpler to type 500 lines of characters that look like the display from "The Matrix" without that cool trickle-down effect. (Come to think if it, in the '80s, "trickle-down" didn't work in economics either.)

So the next time you hear any older tech-head talk about the good old days, he is lying, masochistic, or both. I'm sure our elders don't pine for days before our cars had electric starters, captain's chairs, and climate control: "I liked it back in the old days when we had to stand out in the rain and crank our cars up like giant Fischer Price toys."

And just think, the technology train is still climbing uphill. In a few more years, today's high-tech computers and communications are going to look like mere steps away from the wheel and the club. I guess in two decades from now my own kids (in their own editorial columns, of course) will be walking down the street while talking with their own HAL 9000 through the cell phone chips hard-wired into their skulls, and write pieces about our generation that say things like "Yes, Junior, there was a time when you actually had to put your *hands* on a *keyboard*."

LEGAL STUFF: All content copyright © 1996-2006 Daniel O'Leary. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication, publication, or distribution.

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He has previously written online editorials to NJ-shout.com (RIP), Great Society.org, and Songsource.com, among others. He has also been featured in ShoreGuide and AbsoluteWrite.com.

Dan is a current member of the NetWits humorist's collective.

Since his early twenties, Dan's writings have also been prominently featured on the refrigerator in his parents' home. "Sure, they make no sense," Mrs. O'Leary comments, "but we're proud of him -- no matter what everyone else says."