True Stories of My Battles Against Technological Ignorance: Part One I’ve been a computer user and enthusiast for 50 years. In 1975, at the age of 10, I first encountered a computer, a PDP-11, at the Children’s Museum in Boston. This sparked my lifelong fascination with technology. By 1978, after months of visiting Radio Shack, I bought a TRS-80 Model 1 with 4K of memory. This early computer couldn’t even display lowercase letters, but it was a marvel at the time. To put it in perspective, 4K of memory is less than what a modern digital watch has today. I used this computer to run programs like ELIZA, a simple conversational program, and games like Moon Landing and Scott Adams’ text adventures. It even used a cassette drive to store data. Bringing the TRS-80 to school was a pivotal moment. I wanted to share this ‘neat thing’ with my classmates. Instead of curiosity, I faced fear and ignorance, resulting in suspension. It was a stark reminder that the fear of new technology isn’t new. Today, I see similar reactions with AI. Just like then, fear and misunderstanding can overshadow the potential benefits. It’s crucial to push past this ignorance and embrace the future.