THEY SHOOT COMPUTERS, DON'T THEY? A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Not for the first time, I had a computer shot out from under me. Your average think-box dies foaming at the mouth on the slopes of a gravel pit. Luckily, I once retired a computer. This saved me much trouble…

   For the computer itself is the blessèd item I use to order up a new computer. And I can’t very well haul myself out of the gravel pit if my shopping lifeline is sparking itself to death by my side, staring down my unresponsive keyboard and indifferent mouse as the lights go out, two by two.

   I made the call.

   There’s a problem. We want you back. You remember the old set-up? We’ll concoct adjustments. Been a few changes since you were last in, checking the files.

   I had to deconstruct and reconstruct the office just to admit this Cold Warrior of a computer to the table. Have spares for everything. That cable, the one I’ll never need again? It’s the one I kept anyway. Just in case.

   A power cord extender. There wasn’t room in the office for two computers at the desk. I couldn’t run the old machine from the hallway. No screen, that way. A major wiring problem. It was easier to extend this extra cable and bypass everything.

   I created a new office space in the shadow of my video recording studio, on the floor, underneath the TARDIS console, with boxes of spare cables scattered around me. And I checked every single box for cables.

   Specifically, I looked for a cable I knew I’d need when the new computer materialised. That’s getting ahead of the story. No new computer here, no, not as I type this out.

   But there will be when this tale hits the internet.

   All writing is time travel.

   My old slow retired machine worked, connected to the internet, and allowed me to conjure its successor into existence. At a price. And the price goes beyond the monetary cost. Time. It’ll be with you by Tuesday. But not the very next Tuesday.

   I faced two weeks on the slow boat, pottering down the information country lane. This is a place with a maximum speed of not very fast. I still read e-mail, though it’s not in one handy place – the application was unfortunately disabled a million years ago.

   A disabled application on a machine no longer used, why, that’s hardly a problem, is it, unless you plan to use that ancient computer again. Oh.

   I still answer e-mail.

   But the main problem with the old machine is that everything moves through treacle. It’s irritating to open up a file and start typing. The slight lag of the creaky arthritic device annoys the hell out of me. Rapid-fire entry to, and exit from, many files in short succession. That’s all gone.

   Some software packages refuse to work at all. I’m an update or ten thousand away from reasonable use. Skype is rubbish at the best of times. The old machine has old Skype, which is only capable of recommending a move to new Skype.

   I followed the digital signposts until I reached a beleaguered stretch of the internet. A woodland fire spread across the country lane and roasted the signposts away. I may not update new Skype automatically. The gap is too vast to bridge. So I’m told.

   Instead, I am allowed to go in search of the update manually. This proved an internet workout too far, and I ended with the weights still at my feet and no sense of progress achieved. I may not update to new Skype manually, automatically, or even supernaturally.

   It rained, then. Smoke from the woodland fire disappeared. Zoom bounded across the puddles in the poorly-maintained digital lane and invited me to a meeting. I have absolutely no fucking problem installing Zoom. Meanwhile, Skype gurgles and trembles in the gutter. Cause of death? Blah, blah, blah, something, something, Dark Side.

   My dead computer remains dead. I removed the hard drive and slapped it into a cradle, connecting to my ancient machine. Surprisingly, the cradle genuinely connected. My data, backed up on an external hard drive and also on cloud storage, is still inside.

   So there’s that.

   My dead computer, still dead, is still dead. I bought it to make video editing and processing easier. The old slow machine just wouldn’t cut it. And so here I am, engaged in a spot of time travel. I can write scripts for videos here, on the machine of the past.

   And I can even run a boardgame online, relayed from the table through Zoom. But don’t ask me to process any of the material filmed. This will go out as a video talk on technical difficulties. It’ll be filmed with the aid of the brand-spanking new computer, in the far-flung future of fortnightia…a non-dystopian future. Doesn’t make it a utopian one.

   As long as my resolution of technical difficulties doesn’t fall foul of new technical difficulties, that means I’ll record a video around mid-July 2020. At the end of July I’ll have been making videos for two years, and I’m still on track to average one video per week over that period.

   It’s not a requirement to put a video out there every single week, come rain, come shine. Computers fall over and never stand up again. A virus strikes, and complicates routines. Bastards hoard toilet roll. The bastards.

   I make no apologies for delays in producing material. Life stands in the way, as ever. After a million years of computing, I haven’t lost any data yet. I still want the one fabled button that does everything.

   Yes, it has an UNDO function. And COFFEE ability.

   What of computers, and content creation? Unless a computer is shotgunned and I tumble from the saddle, I don’t generally upgrade. I’m in the business of buying a machine that will last for years. Then I’ll buy a new one, making another interstellar leap forward.

   That’s not for everyone. There are the tinkerers who add a thing after a few months and another gadget a few months after that. As I sit here using this clockwork computer from 1892, I ask myself what I’d upgrade?

   Nothing. You need a new one, hell, buy a new one. I never upgraded my dead one, or the retired one, or the machine that died before that retired one came into the house all shiny and new. My computing demands increased gradually. Machines coped without upgrades.

And now, an upgrade. Or, more precisely, an update. The tired old clockwork computer accepted a message on the end of a y-shaped stick, brought in by a gasping mechanic. Thank you, gasping mechanic.

   Windows provided an update, bridging the gap. I thought it worth a shot to see if I could, after all, fix Skype. Skype accepted the party invitation and is now back to respectable levels of being generally shitty.

   The one-stop-shop for e-mail lies, sadly, beyond reach. Not to worry. Every hour shortens the distance between the fading of the clockwork saviour and the arrival of a new dawn in computing. I will have my video processing powers restored. Just draw sword from stone. Plug socket in. Flip switch. Save the clock tower during a storm. And we’ll be back to the future of electronic tomfoolery.

   Buy spares for everything. Keep all the spare things you bought. When a piece of equipment becomes obsolete, think long and hard before throwing that item away. If a computer doesn’t explode while in use, that computer retires. It’s there for you, slow, quirky, and semi-useful.

   But it is there for you, and it connects to the internet. And it’s all good. That’s not true. It’s mostly averagely bad. As long as the vital bit works, an old clockwork computer sparks and steams along with a sense of purpose.

   Not with a sense of urgency. That’s too much to ask of it.

   Going back one computer is a grim trip down fossilised memory lane. I stared at shortcut icons for software bypassed by better applications several computer lifetimes ago. If I had to, I’d go back two computers to an emergency laptop. That’s if I could find it. I know the laptop is around here somewhere.

   If the computer I am typing on now is a clockwork machine straight out of Verne or Welles, then the laptop is steeped in deeper, more arcane, science – the sort that fits right in when described by Mary Shelley.

   I write under the hammer of the virus, of course, and if you can limit human contact then you should limit human contact. My computer lifeline, allowing me to order a better computer, is the internet. Without a back-up machine, and a back-up of a back-up for use in direst emergencies, I’d be forced to make use of a friend’s computer.

   Out come the masks, the wipes, the spray, the soap, the wire brush, the industrial-strength tinfoil hat. You must wear a tinfoil hat to protect you from computer viruses while typing. And that…is a computing fact.

   Technical difficulties shouldn’t affect you beyond the street in which you live. Will my new computer work straight out of the box? I’ll duplicate this text as a blog post and as a video. We’ll see how quickly I can set up both. Same day production would be a miracle.

   I’ll have to scour for video production images to nudge the narrative along. Thematically, I feel I must settle on footage from a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE boardgame. That video caught a dose of sub-standard audio, and had to be abandoned for technical difficulties. Gremlins. Never get them wet. Don’t involve them in a land war in Asia.