I confess: I am an addict

[hyphenate]

to downloading and computers. Many years ago, when there was no "internet" and hard drives were all of 20 and 30MB in size, we used to have BBS where if you could get into one--100 baud modems were not very reliable--you could download "shareware" and play with new games and small programs. Heaven forbid that anything was larger than the space a 3 1/2" floppy could hold--it was scandalous for even that to be filled!

Than, slowly and inexorably, more people got wise to this new thing--owning a PC. And then, graphic interfaces began to take over, bringing PCs to the "regular" folks, and out of the hands of those geeks among us. And BBSs faded away for the most part, and paid, online services took over--AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve, etc. And shareware, while it still existed, became more and more commercialized, and it became harder and more difficult to find good programs without having to pay through the nose for them.

And as computers became common fare, the speeds increased, the processors got more and more complex, and the size of hard drives increased exponentially. A 30MB hard drive isn't even big enough for storage, anymore, and even the smallest programs are often larger than that!

And even now, with both a 130GB and a 30GB hard drive, I still don't have enough space! Photos, sound programs, music, fonts, and even basic programs are taking my drives way beyond the capacity of my very first hard drive. And the speed has gone from 16Mhz to 1.1Ghz and beyond! It's enough to make one cry, thinking how far we have come in so short a time. My first computer was 20 years ago, and cost me five times what you can now purchase a computer for now in many cases.

I'm still a geek, though, and still replace old parts from my system, instead of buying a new one. And yet, it feels like we can never really catch up to the latest technology or the latest equipment.

And still I download. Right now, my current interest is in fonts, and I can't get enough of them. And yes, there is far more than Arial, Times Roman, Helvetica and Courier out there! Most people could and usually do settle for about 100-250 fonts. They can't tell the difference for the most part unless a font is truly decorative more than functional. But for some of us--especially since I was a graphic designer and desktop publisher--that amount is inadequate. Try several thousand. Try one website which had 3500 fonts to download! Yes, fonts are trouble. They take up a good amount of space on your drive, and if you even thought about loading them all into the font folder, it would take your computer a very long time to boot. But if you only load them when you need them, and then deactivate them afterward, it is a lot easier.

And shareware--and freeware--still abounds. I have the URLs of many websites from which I download, and still, it never seems like enough.

Yes--I am an addict. And isn't it a great addiction considering 25 years ago that we didn't even have email, couldn't "talk" on the internet, and would never have imagined the links we all have now?

Thank god for the progress we have made. And 20 years from now, I can't truly imagine what advances we will have made from now until then. If some of the current technology is any indication, it will be stupendous and perhaps even a bit scary. Whole computers that fit into your watch; perhaps a chip implanted in your head which acts as a communication device. It could result in many a scary scenario for which we had better all be aware.

But for now, at least, let us enjoy our "addiction." It allows so many of us an outlet to maintain some semblance of sanity even as we are surely going nuts with the current government. :)