Skyhigh 20 Death of a race

Death of a race


IT
IT was a nice, warm summers day. The sort of day you
think all days were like when you look back on your
memories of being young. The sort of day when kids
feel free to play in the streets. The sort of day
that parents take off work, so they can wash to
car, and mow the lawn. It was a perfect day. It was
sunny, the bird were singing, and the postman had
been.

Nigel got in from school and saw a huge pile of disks
sitting there. He sneezed, cursing the warm, summers
day that was forming memories for people that would
stay with them for the rest of their lives.

"Damned weather", Nigel thought. "It brings on my
hay fever."

Nigel went over to the kitchen table, as there was
todays mail. He knew in his heart that the new issue
of "Disk-O", his favourite diskmagazine would be in
that mail somewhere.

He pushed his round rimmed spectacles up higher
over his acne ridden nose, so he could get a look at
the handwriting. Surely enough, there is was, a disk
from Fishmonger/Mighty-guyz. It had to be. He was
one of the main editors of the magazine, and he had
told Nigel the night before on an American Chatline
that he had sent it to him a few days earlier. Already
sweating in the intense summer heat, Nigel sweated
some more at the thought of Disk-O issue 25, the
silver issue. Apparantly it had a 5 speed upscroller
that used a proportional font! Nigel tore the pack
open, to see a votesheet, and a small note saying:

"Hi Nigel, I'll call you soon.  Fishmonger."

Cool, a long and friendly note this time, thought
Nigel.

He ran through the house and up the stairs, to get
to his room. But, his sister, Kerry stepped out of her
room. With her usual sneer and tarty stance, she
looked like she may give out some words of wisdom
to Nigel.

"Well," she said, chewing on her gum. "It looks like
you had a good day with the mail today. Lots of porn
for you to jerk off to I guess."

"Fuck you, you daft tart", Nigel replied, with a
surprising show of dignity for his sister. "Don't you
know the new issue of Disk-O is in this pack? It has
a 5 speed proportional upscroller."

With an odd glance, Kerry stepped back into her room
muttering about him being a sad little nerd.

Nigel rushed into his room, and turned on his C64 to
check the new issue!

"Yeah, it is 2 sides long, that's great!" Nigel thought
to himself. "I wonder if I am in the charts?"

Flying through the chapters, Nigel got to the charts
soon enough. Scanning the charts, he saw his name
in the cracker charts. My God, position 3. That's what
it said:

THE MIGHTY NIGEL/BLUE SECTOR
THE MIGHTY NIGEL/BLUE SECTOR

He had made it at last.

Shouting with joy, Nigel decided he would put on some
music to celebrate, so choose a delicate selection
of "Death by Insertion", the new CD from his fave
band "The Monkey Bashers".

Nigel was shocked. He would have to spend all night
reading the mag and doing some cracking, to hold his
position in the charts. But his friends from school
had asked him to go out to a pub that night. What
could he do. But, he couldn't go, as he just had to
read the mag, and crack the new game "Fred's Front"
tonight, or he would be kicked from his group.

He got on the phone to the lad he was meeting at
about 8pm:

"Hi John, its The Mighty Nigel.... I mean, Nigel."
"Hi Nigel, how are you, are you still on for tonight? I
know we are only 16, but we will easily get into the
pub. They would serve a 3 year old, as long as he
didn't come in on a tricycle!"
"Well, John, I can't come, because, erm... I've not got
any money. Sorry."
"But it was your birthday the other day, you said you
would make this your birthday celebration! You've
got to come. You only just told us how much cash
you got from your Auntie Vera today!"
"Yeah, John, but, erm... Sorry, my mum is calling, I
will have to go. I'll see you in school on Monday, OK?
Maybe we'll go out next week, OK?"
"Sure, I guess so. See you later Nigel...."
"Have a good night, John."

And Nigel went back to his C64.

---------------------------------------------

How many times have sceners like you or me (Shuze)
done that sort of thing before. I am not talking
about staying in because a new mag is there, but how
many times have you not gone out, just because you
have some scene stuff to do.

Probably more times than you would care to admit to.

But the thing is, it is not happening as often as is
used to any more. These days if someone has to do
something on a computer, it is not like in the 80's,
when technophobia was rampant, that if you could
use a computer of any sort, then you were a nerd,
a geek, a billy-no-mates. These days, the computer
nerd really has to be an extreme case to be called
that.

How many of the people reading this would think of
themselves as computer nerds? I certainly would
not think of myself as that, although I do spend a
great deal of time using computers. At the moment,
it is acceptable, due to the increasing dependancy
in industry, and in education, on computers. Think of
it. How many times do you see a really attractive
girl handing in their work done on computer these
days? Then think of how many times you saw that
about 5 years ago. Hardly ever.

Only the guys with glasses, spots, and no dress
scence ever did that, didn't they?

So what has happened to the computer nerd? Well,
I think evolution as taken place. Look at it. The
computer nerd of the 80's is now a lot older, and is
experienced at everything. These days those nerds
are more regarded as computer geniuses, and are
either in jail, or working for Microsoft! People in the
non-computer world think of them as great people,
real geniuses. 5 or 10 years ago, people would have
said "He uses computers? What a geek!"

I think the whole thing is that the attitude to
computers has changed so dramatically that they
are now an acceptable past time. The internet is
partly responsible for this, opening up whole new
avenues in entertainment. Other things are the CDI
systems, as they have attracted people to buy them
and use them as video-CD players, and music CD
players, and then people get into the games also.

Of course, anyone who knows something about the
actual programming of computers is still often
singled out, but again, instead of being that nerd
who knows about computers, he is a really clever
guy who can help everyone.

So, maybe we all missed it. Maybe we didn't think.

Just when did the stereotypical computer nerd die?

And should anyone be upset?

I don't think so.



Shuze/Afl'70