I was weaned on computers that were text-only. No graphics. In fact, my favorite monitor was an Amdek, 13-inch, amber monitor. It was heaven.

Amber refers to the color of the text. Yes, there were graphics. I used a Hercules Graphics Card in my first IBM PC. A handful of programs would recognize the Hercules and display some graphics. So for a few fleeting moments I could do graphical stuff, but mostly computing life in the early 1980s involved text.

Text mode isn’t gone. All modern operating systems — Windows, OS X, Unix, Linux — sport a terminal window. In that window you can view text mode in its former glory. In fact, you can control the entire computer. But doing such a thing is gutsy.

Using a terminal window, or a “command prompt,” means knowing the various text mode commands. They’re very powerful, but not quite friendly. It was that rude behavior that lead to the development of graphical operating systems so long ago. Still, I must confess that using text mode, while cryptic and non-intuitive, is much faster and more effective than doing things the graphical way. Of course, being a nerd, you can see how I would love such a thing.

By the way, if you want to know more about the terminal window in Linux, there is an excellent, on-line tutorial from David S. Lawyer: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO.html.

Information Superhighway Parking Lot. According to an article on CNet, AT&T is claiming that the Internet’s capacity will be met and exceeded by 2010, less than two years from now. It’s an interesting notion, and the alarmists in the media latch on to doom and gloom like a 4-year-old latches onto anything sticky. I don’t see a problem, though. These “we will run out” type of predictions happen all the time and never prove. That’s because innovation doesn’t stop. Remember that.