Impression 5
Feb. 9th, 2005 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldThe first time I instant-messaged was around 1986, when I was about twelve or so. My grandfather frequently took me and my siblings to Impression 5 Science Center in the eighties. It was great. One time I got a compliment from an employee there because I was the only one remaining in the film room all the way to the end of Dr. Seuss' environmentalist cartoon The Lorax, because everybody else had got up and left and she felt that was impolite. There already existed totally automated museum videos at that time, so I don't think they even knew she was there.
One of their exhibits was two computer terminals set up across a room from each other. I typed into one of them, walked over and typed a response, and conversed with myself a few times in this way. I loved it. My dad had done it with my uncle with their Commodore 64s for a few minutes, but it seemed stratospherically high-tech, and this connection was faster, more stable, and free.
As I sat at one of the terminals, someone came and sat down at the other one. It was a girl. She just sat there and read the screen, at first. I typed encouraging messages instructing how to use it. We chatted for a while over the connection. Eventually I got up the nerve to communicate that I was the boy sitting on the other side of the room, and we waved and smiled.
She thought I was quite smart, and funny. I was twelve and this was possibly the first friendly conversation I had with a girl or other socially desirable person, so I didn't know at the time how I was supposed to respond to such a statement. I still wish I'd gotten her contact info or something, but I never saw her again. It's been a few years since the memory of this event was recalled, and I like it, so I'm glad to be writing it down.
One of their exhibits was two computer terminals set up across a room from each other. I typed into one of them, walked over and typed a response, and conversed with myself a few times in this way. I loved it. My dad had done it with my uncle with their Commodore 64s for a few minutes, but it seemed stratospherically high-tech, and this connection was faster, more stable, and free.
As I sat at one of the terminals, someone came and sat down at the other one. It was a girl. She just sat there and read the screen, at first. I typed encouraging messages instructing how to use it. We chatted for a while over the connection. Eventually I got up the nerve to communicate that I was the boy sitting on the other side of the room, and we waved and smiled.
She thought I was quite smart, and funny. I was twelve and this was possibly the first friendly conversation I had with a girl or other socially desirable person, so I didn't know at the time how I was supposed to respond to such a statement. I still wish I'd gotten her contact info or something, but I never saw her again. It's been a few years since the memory of this event was recalled, and I like it, so I'm glad to be writing it down.
