Chronicles Of The Insufferably Old

As I recall, when I arrived at college in ‘87, everyone got an email automatically but it was very esoteric, few used it (at least in the humanities), and most who used it had to do so in the computer lab. I emailed friends at other colleges once or twice.

— LolWhatInsurrectionHat (@Popehat) June 3, 2021

By '87 I had been married for 10 years, had finished law school and would be licensed the next year (10 years after finishing college), and still hadn't heard of "e-mail."

I'd used a computer working for a law firm as a clerk; learned "WordPerfect" because I didn't have a secretary (what clerk does?) and I needed to write things out (still do).

I had studied Fortran, for one semester (as an elective) in college.  We were only allowed to use keypunch machines.  There were three screens (we called them "CRT's," IIRC), and only seniors in computer programming could even look at them.  The rest of us were not worthy.  Don't remember a damned thing about it now.

I remember, just before law school (?), visiting a house my brother-in-law was looking at.  They had a computer in one room, and I wondered then what-in-the-hell somebody would do with a computer at home.  In the office, yes.  At home?  Are you kidding?

I finally got an e-mail address when I got internet access.  That would be nearly 10 years after law school. Near enough for dammit, anyway.

Yes, I'm insufferably old.