If you happened to be asleep for the five years since Computimes started, here are the five main changes you might have missed.
1. Networks
The Web came, we saw, it conquered. A sublime new medium.
In 1994 most machines weren't networked. Mobile phones still resembled those clunky field telephones from M*A*S*H. Today, the planet is awash with devices which talk to each other - and mobiles and laptops have invaded our social spaces, for both good and evil. Mobiles are becoming the cigarettes of the 21st century, and the Palm Pilot is the latest fashion accessory.
Today, ordinary people think nothing of dropping into an east-coast cyber cafe or a west Cork cyber pub. The first wave of cyber cafes seemed like a temporary stop-gap solution for people who couldn't afford their own Internet account at work/home. They've evolved into far more permanent social spaces - for tourists, people on the move, families wanting to taste the technologies for the first time and find out how email changes your life.
2. Hardware
PCs speeded up, shrank (sometimes) and even fell below the magic £1,000 barrier.
Storage became incredibly cheap. To take a simple example: in 1994 you might find one floppy disk (1.4 megabytes) on the cover of your favourite PC magazine. Nowadays floppies are almost obsolete, and you'll get two or three CD-Rom cover disks per mag (over a thousand times more information) - not to mention that instantly disposable AOL disk inside which gives you free access to the Net for a month.
3. Software
In 1994, you still had to type arcane commands to do essential things on most computers (with notable exceptions such as the Mac and Amiga). There was still the feeling that you had to write everything yourself, including half the programs. Nowadays it's a completely different universe: you can drag-and-drop files, click on icons, open windows and use "meta tools" to take care of things instead of having to take years of night classes in C++.
The past five years saw the rise and rise of free stuff, from browsers to operating systems, Web space and even ISP accounts.
Yes, Wintel did take over the world. In 1994 there was still a wide and healthy "bio-diversity" among machines and operating systems; today Windows and Intel chips rule, and Bill Gates is telling a US court why.
4. Language
When Computimes started there was a definite "language barrier" about PCs and networks. The specialised computer magazines were jargon-ridden and mystifying to general readers who didn't understood their clatter of TLAs (Okay, three-letter acronyms). We wanted to write pieces that our mums could understand (no offence Ma) and a lot of "scissor-ware" - that is, cut-out "jargon-busters" and how-to guides that people keep for reference.
As for that obscure jargon of half a decade ago, from "bugs" and "bytes" to "browsers" and "ISPs", a surprising amount of it has now seeped into everyday speech.
Millions of people even talk HTML. Nobody could have predicted back in 1994 that something called HyperText Mark-up Language or HTML - the formatting language of the World Wide Web - would become so widespread, used by millions of ordinary and extraordinary people to build their own slice of the Web.
5. Culture
Five years ago, many Internet stories in the Irish media were shallow, anti-technology and revolved around just three themes: hackers, porn and games addiction. All important issues, perhaps, but the moral panics and one-dimensional stories got in the way of readers understanding the bigger picture. In 1994 most people saw computers and networks as a "techie", "nerdie" ghetto. It was an underworld of video gamers and teenage hackers rather than something that might actually change the ways we work, socialise and talk to each other.
Bill Gates became a household name.
A new generation of indigenous Irish software companies made an international name from themselves, such as Iona Technologies, CSK Software, Nua, CBT and Baltimore.
Computing and networking have been increasingly geared towards the general population rather than techie types, and you don't have to know much about what's going on inside your PC. The downside is that five years ago you could have known about everything inside your PC, while nowadays the machines are too complex and the software too bloated for this. An even smaller proportion of users now have a hands-on feel for what's going on in their machines, for the actual code and how it works.
Computimes began as a small experiment, in limited space. Nowadays the area has expanded so much that you're likely to get Internet-related stories in business and arts sections, and URLs on sports pages and bread vans. An email address is no longer regarded as some strange hieroglyphics from another planet. Today you can see Web and email addresses at the end of TV shows, on company vans and t-shirts and beer mats, you name it.
mick@volta.net
fomarcaigh@irish-times.ie