So Engadget has talked about their first PCs. I actually used a machine before the PC…when I was eight, I trained on an IBM Displaywriter. The Displaywriter was a $14,000 word processor. And by word processor, I mean that's all it did. You had a green screen and you had the ginormous eight-inch diskettes (if I remember correctly…I still have a couple around here somewhere).

I grew up blue, so of course we had an original PC. Then we were amazed when there was actually a 10MB hard drive included. Ten megabytes…Jesus, who could ever need that much space? Then I used to work on the first luggable PC IBM made, the Portable PC. It was basically a PC with a handle on it. Seriously. It came with a tiny amber monochrome screen and two diskette drives. I don't think it had a hard drive, but I can't remember exactly.

I think in there somewhere I worked on a PC Jr. That was the biggest piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to work with. I still refer to it as the Tonka Toy of PCs. My neighbor who had a Timex PC, one with keys so small you needed a toothpick and a magnifying glass to work it–that was more impressive than the PC Jr.

The majority of my novel's first and second drafts were done on a Portable PS/2 Model 8573, a slightly more luggable luggable. It too had an amber screen–but larger–with a fold-down detachable keyboard, a fold-out diskette drive and a hard drive. I used an external monitor with it and wrote the novel on the kitchen table of the apartment I shared with my girlfriend at the time.

I'm still amazed that I walk around today with my iPod and my MDA and I've got more computing power just on my freaking belt that I would have thought possible back in those days.

By my desk at work, I keep a PC diskette drive. Whenever I feel like I'm losing perspective, I take it in one hand and my laptop in the other–and I heft them both for a weight comparison. I do this just to keep my head on straight.