Living in a house built in 1962 doesn't mean the construction world has passed me by. The hardware has got to work, the software has got to work, and those two have got to work harmoniously. Developing and manufacturing modern computer hardware is a black art, best left to people who write engineering theses whose titles I can't even understand. Basic software is a little bit more familiar to me, but complicated things like writing operating systems and compilers are also black arts. Modern graphical user interfaces save me from a lot of rooting around in the computer's dark recesses, but they can't shield me from everything.
Help can be hard to find.
Oh, the Romance Still, I love computing. I can tinker. My computer has lots of screws, parts, cables, software settings, interface controls, and programming tools. The part of me that, as a child, loved taking apart my parents' most prized possessions grins in delight whenever I can poke and prod the truly complex machine under my desk. Let's face it, not many of us are television producers, calligraphers, artists, or musicians.