Day: February 3, 2023

WDP — My First Computer

Fandango13 Comments

Write about your first computer.

Back on September 1, 2020, PCGuy IV posed this question in his Truthful Tuesday post. So I’m just going to copy and paste from that post for my answer here.

My first computer (circa 1982) was the original IBM PC. It came with an 8088 Intel chip that ran at a whopping 4.77 MHz. The operating system was PC-DOS, it came with two 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives and no hard drive. I upgraded it with something called an AST Six Pack, which added a clock and calendar so I didn’t have to enter the date and time every time I logged on, plus some additional RAM, a parallel port, and a serial port. Then I added a 10 Mb hard card, figuring that a 10 Mb internal hard drive would last me a lifetime. I also bought an RBG color monitor from Princeton Graphics and an Okidata dot matrix printer.

From the software perspective, I got WordStar for word processing, VisiCalc for my spreadsheet, and Microsoft Flight Simulator for fun. I soon added a blazingly fast 300 baud Hayes modem and discovered online bulletin boards and, eventually, something called Prodigy, on online subscription service that was a precursor to America Online (AOL).

Personal computing has certainly come a long way sonce the early 1980s, hasn’t it?

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — February 3rd

Fandango13 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 3rd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on February 3, 2018. Before I get into my Flashback Friday post, I discovered, as I was looking through my archives yesterday, that almost five years ago to the day, I posted this post, which featured the same two words, sympathy and empathy, that today’s Flashback post features. This is really quite coincidental and unintentional, I promise.

Word Play Gone Astray

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“I really empathize with that poor man over there,” Jessica said, looking at the homeless man sleeping beneath a tree in the park.

“No, Jessica, you don’t empathize with him,” Mitch said. “How could you? You’ve never been homeless and had to sleep on the street.”

“You know what I mean,” responded Jessica. “I feel bad for him, sorry for him.”

“I know you do,” said Mitch. “But that’s not empathy, that’s sympathy.”

“Same difference,” Jessica said.

“No, empathy and sympathy are not the same,” Mitch said. “When you empathize with someone, you can put yourself in that person’s shoes. When you sympathize with someone, you feel compassion or pity toward that person.”

“Fine, whatever,” Jessica said. “It’s six of one, half a dozen of another.”

“Jessica,” Mitch said, “the two words are not synonymous.”

“Stop being such a grammar nerd, Mitch,” Jessica insisted. “I could care less if there is a slight difference between ‘empathize’ and ‘sympathize.’ You knew very well what I meant.”

“You mean you couldn’t care less,” Mitch said, a smile on his face.

“You’re an asshole,” Jessica said, as she stormed away.

Written for today’s one-word prompt, “sympathize.”

FOWC with Fandango — Arena

Fandango35 Comments
FOWC

It’s February 3, 2023. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “arena.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.