Before the Apple, There Was The Texas Seed

Write about your first computer.

In 1987, I touched a Macintosh mouse for the first time, and was immediately hooked. I loved the graphical user interface and the ability to create with HyperCard and MacPaint (even as limited as that was.) It was a revelation to me, and I have used Macs ever since.

But before my first Mac, before my Commodore 64, there was the Texas Instruments TI99/4A. I worked at Toys ‘R’ Us in the beginning of the home computer boom, and these were being sold very inexpensively. Am I right—was it $49.99? Or $99.99? In either case, I brought one home.

I learned the basics of BASIC programming and the beginnings of word processing. I bought a printer to store my writing in the analog world, and purchased some games to entertain me—and obtained the speech synthesizer that provided a robotic voice to some of the games. The TI was truly a gateway into the digital world for me.

One of the long-form pieces I’m working on is what I’m calling my Digital Technology Memoir. It covers my origins with technology (the short version is above) and how I followed that with the C64, a series of Macintosh computers, the internet and World Wide Web, experiments with AI, a myriad of conference presentation and publications, and in fact an international reputation for my work in the digital realm. I may not be the first person to come up in a google search, but my work, including Theatre in Cyberspace: Issues of Teaching, Acting, and Directing has had a lasting impact for many (which is what prompted the writing of my Memoir).