Boing Boing Gidgets! That would be so rad.

For 15½ years my life was a complete and total ick. But then on the 23rd of June two things happened. I fell in love with two things: Jeff, my Moondoggie, and steampunk.

When I was a kid we had a computer that my dad and one of his friends had built from spare parts. I was born in 1977, and the computer predated me, but I'm not sure by how much. I think it predated my sister, too, and she was born in 1975.

It was about 6 feet tall and maybe three feet wide, with a tiny oscilloscope screen and a keyboard that was all different colors. It could play music (though no more than a note at a time), and even had one of those old school voice synthesizers, which my dad would program to say stuff like, "You are six years old; you have to go to scho-ol." Everything on the screen was made up of dots, and looked really delicate, elegant really.

It still exists, though it's been slumbering quietly in my parents' spare room since about 1988 or so. Maybe I'll encourage my dad to dust it off & fire it up next time I'm home -- I hope it still works. It'd be like losing a kindly uncle if the MS-1 were lost in the dustbin of history.