[no-s]

I’m sad for you. Every few years I get an acute case of “I hate computing” which can last for days or months (still not sure if I’ve gotten over that malaise I picked up from Ed Snowden in “citizen 4”) despite the plucky meandering of ApenWarr in the face of disaster[1].

But my recollection of the 80s/90s doesn’t include your rosy glow. I still recall the horrorshow of my first powermac. Or the awful churn of MSA Payroll which needed custom work before and after every payroll run. Or the magic smoke emanating from the simultaneous frying of all the Netware Server ethernet cards in the middle of close on Black Monday 1987, after just one server was patched the night before.

Friend, the history of computing is definitely not “Insanely Great”, it’s just insane. Read early Risks Digest[2] from that era and you will see many absurd problems of today reflect the past all too well.

[1] "The gift of it's your problem now": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29736369

[2] https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/