Technological Epiphany

I’ve been writing for a long time.  When we purchased our first computer at Radio Shack, I entered my work and saved it all to 3.5” floppies.  We were “state-of-the-art” and humming right along!

Years later, we purchased a newer, faster, more “user-friendly” PC.  Because the files were not compatible, I printed all of my work and reentered it into the new computer.  There, I saved it in the enormous memory:  all 364K of it!  If we were humming before, we were sailing now!  Eventually things slowed down and I had to start saving to the floppies again, and there were literally stacks of them all over the desk.  I saved the promotional disks that AOL sent, reformatted them, and saved my own data.  Soon I had shoe boxes filled with the little plastic squares.

Coming forward a few years, we purchased a computer with more memory capacity than anyone could possibly fill…a 1-gig hard drive!  WOW!  Now we were cruising.  Not only did it accept 3.5” floppies and correctly decipher their encoded files, it was fast, had automatic spell-checking on the word processor, and could connect to the internet through the phone line!  Talk about awesome technology!  We added a ZIP drive so that I could save larger files to high capacity ZIP disks, and believe me; I filled a lot of them!  Being large and heavy, however, the computer was in the family room and when I got the urge to write at midnight, I’d traipse downstairs in my robe and slippers to tap out my ideas by the light of the screen until my husband would come looking for me hours later.

One year on our anniversary he placed a beautifully-wrapped, heavy box in my lap and said, “This is my special gift for you.”

I couldn’t imagine what it was:  new silverware?  We’d had ours through eighteen years of marriage.  It couldn’t be dishes; the box wasn’t large enough for more than a single place setting.  What was it?

When I opened the box, it was emblazoned with the words “SONY VAIO” and I had no clue what that meant.  With all of the paper removed, I realized I was holding my very own laptop computer!  What an awesome gift! 

“Now you don’t have to leave the bedroom when you want to write at night,” my husband explained, helping me remove the packaging and find the instruction books.

Many nights were spent with that computer on a tiny table by my bed.  I’d write and write and write, and then I’d save my work.  This laptop had floppy drive, but it also had a CD-burner, and that was just the coolest thing ever!  I could save so much more on a CD than I could on a floppy!  I couldn’t hook up the ZIP drive, though, but that wasn’t a big deal.  The other computer still worked just fine and I could pull them up whenever I wanted.

I should have known something would happen.  It took a few years, but the power source blew out on the computer, leaving me with stacks of ZIP disks and no computer to run them on!  For over two years those disks have waited in boxes, and I often go and look at them and wonder what gems of writing I may find if ever I can open them again.  All of the stories and research and photos; all of the poems, essays, editorials, letters, and worksheets I made to go with my educational works!  Everything is on those disks, but how can I get to it?

The other day I had an epiphany!  What if there was a way to convert the zip drive cable that usually connects to the printer cable access into a USB plug?  If it could be converted, I would be able to plug it into my laptop, download the disks, and have my complete work on one computer.  I suggested the idea to my electronics-minded fifteen-year old son, who looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Mom, all you need is a USB/Parallel Port Printer Adapter Cable.  They’re about thirty bucks at Office Depot.”

I will close on that note.  I have to get ready to go to the store and buy one of those thingamajigs so I can open those disks.  Now, if I only knew where the installation disks were put…

Does anyone out there have an old Iomega ZIP Drive with installation disks they no longer need?  I never realized that Plug and Play was such a great feature! 

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Write a story or poem about having a sudden epiphany (a sudden insight, sudden realization, sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through ordinary experience; an "aha" moment). You must use the word "epiphany" at least once in your entry when describing the experience.