Remembering the Kitchen Computer
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Sat Oct  8 11:56:25 PM EDT 2022

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Written on: Thinkpad X13
Listening to: Goose Live at Dillon Amphitheater 2022-08-17
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I'm dog sitting for my folks this weekend which
means I'm spending a good bit of time in my
childhood home. It's nostalgic at times, although
I do come over about once a week with Jennie to
see my parents for dinner and board games. We live
close by, and it's a nice way to stay in touch.

Anyways, this post isn't about dog sitting or
being at home really: it's about remembering a
fixture of my childhood: the Kitchen Computer.

For most of my pre-teen and all my high-school
years, my family had compact PC desktop running
Windows XP (then Windows 7, never made it to
Win10). It was finally put out to the garage a
few years ago, when it became so slow that
people would rather use phones than wait 30s
for the browser to start.

But during its heyday, it was a central part
of my computing life. I was fortunate enough
to go to a high school where halfway through
they were able to give everyone a laptop, but
prior to that it was one of the main ways I
accessed the internet.

Our house is laid out so that the kitchen,
a wide open space with an island, is a frequent
gathering spot. So the kitchen computer was the
natural place to gather round and share a video.
Or to queue up some music to listen to while
my mom cooked (she's an amazing cook).

Cooking tonight for my friends (pizza game night!)
it just struck me how the computing world has
moved on. My kids probably won't have that
communal "gather round" experience of a shared
desktop. It's both amazing how far our handhelds
have come and sad to lose that old experience.
Even if it was slow and involved dealing with
Windows :)

I wonder what home computing will look like by
the time I have kids. Hopefully I'll be able to
pass along some favorite technologies when they're
old enough.