It’s November 1982 – You’re A Teenager – You’re In L.A. – Warm Boot Is A Phrase That Baffles You.

Didn't really see a future in computers.

Your Guidance Counsellor twisted your arm off. “Computers are the wave of the future”, she said. “Everybody will have one”, she said.

Furthest thing from your mind. She was persistent. She promised you’d graduate early. Instead of getting railroaded into ROTC, you nodded your head and got signed up for a semester full of Computer Science. It wasn’t your idea – you were perfectly happy with your IBM Selectric. You liked the way it sounded, tapping out letters and words. Erasing mistakes with a bottle of White Out – having complete thoughts and being inspired while you were writing. You got a used Selectric and it set you back a few months. You were an English major and you wanted a job at the Herald Examiner when you finally got out of college – how could you think of anything, staring at one of those really ugly TV screens and this stuff they called Code that you had to put in every time you wrote something?

You didn’t get it – software was a foreign concept to you. Floppies made no sense at all. But it was an easy grade and a promise for an early graduation. You had no idea how she was going to pull that off, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

First day of Computer Science class it was you and fifteen other people, staring at TV screens. The keyboards made small clacky sounds; nothing like an office full of typewriters. The teacher sat at the front with an overhead projector and what seemed like an easy introduction to the Amazing World Of Computers. You weren’t sold, but you were stuck. No matter what class it is, there’s always the kid who was gung-ho and asked lots of questions and seemed to be two miles ahead of everybody else. She had a face full of pimples and a permanently tapping left foot – she shared a desk with you and was destined to get an A. You were destined to eek out a D.

You saw her as strange – she saw you as stupid – she said two words to you the whole semester; Warm Boot. She said that every time your computer stopped working.

At first you thought it was some coded message meaning sex. You squinted – she looked at you like a bag of rocks.

It had to do with your computer – it had to do with restarting it. After a few episodes and realizing your computer didn’t understand “go fuck yourself” as a legitimate command, you finally got it. She never told you again.

You were still convinced there was no future with computers. The average computer cost as much as a three bedroom house. At least by the end of the semester you were able to compose a formal letter to a fictitious Mister Brown of the Acme Tool and Dye Company.

While you were mastering the cumbersome art of the Dot-Matrix printer, your deskmate was busy poring over Code.

As you predicted – she got the A and you scratched by with a D.

The future was starting to feel like bad Science Fiction. Your only concession to the waves of newness was investing your lunch money in a Sony Walkman.

Of course, at the time you had no idea you’d be programming software for a living – no idea there would be an internet – no idea your business partner would be your former deskmate.

At the time you had your Walkman firmly glued to your head and music was filling your brain, working overtime on your imagination.

The future is scary – it’s never what you think. Spending hours getting your ears blown out gave you ideas.

Funny how that happens.

Here’s a one hour dose of KOST from November 18, 1982 as a reminder.