When the Internet was a baby

Back in the early 1990s, maybe as early as 1990, Dan and I were sitting one evening in our downtown Halifax house. I was reading, Dan was at the computer. The computer had a small square black screen; the print was green. I remember it looking like this:

After doing something or other with the keyboard – it's hard to remember how it used to work – Dan said, "I'm being taken on a tour around a museum in Western Australia." There were no pictures, of course, just that green text but he was being toured around having all the exhibits described to him in words.

I can't even begin to tell you how fascinating this was. It seemed like magic and I'm sure I said, as I have said so many times since, "What will they think of next?"

I was a twice-a-week columnist with The Daily News then. I wrote a general interest column for Tuesday and a feminist column for the Sunday paper. (It's hard to believe in 2016 but in 1989, I was specifically invited to write a "feminist" column. I can't even imagine that happening today.)

I used to write my column in a WordPerfect document, transfer it to a floppy disc and send it to the newspaper's offices in Burnside Industrial Park by courier.

For some reason, probably just because none of us knew any better, my columns never had a good identifying name. Some of them have a one-word name that doesn't really say much; others, believe it or not, are just called "Column."

Over the years, over several different computers, over a switch from WordPerfect to Word, my columns have mostly survived and are mostly accessible inside this very computer I'm working on. They're still mostly a no-name product though so they are a new project for me. I am going through them, reading them and giving them all brand-new names. It shouldn't be a huge job – a bit time-consuming – but something I should spend a little time on each day. In fact, it's the kind of mindless task I enjoy so let me at 'em.

I have already moved many of the columns to my website Sharon Fraser where they're dated and identified as Daily News columns. I hope they're safe there but I'll be happy to keep them – properly named – in their Word home also.

Because you never know – do you? – where the Internet will go next.