Drowning Luddite clings on to his Remington

Date: 25/04/1996

By Geoff Meade

I AM to new technologies what the bow and arrow is to the Exocet missile. In a world of microchips with everything, I am clinging to my Remington Standard 1932 typewriter like the last survivor from the Titanic clinging to a floating log.

But although I may be a Luddite, I have learned an interesting lesson: unlike logs, typewriters sink.

While others are happily surfing the Internet, the weight of my Remington is dragging me beneath the waves. But I shall not let it go. And, surfacing for the third and last time, I take comfort from the fact that there are many others out there in a sea of megabyte confusion, floundering just as badly.

Not you, of course. You can tell a Baud from a bathplug and a Smilie from a smoked haddock, of that there is no doubt, because everyone claims to be an expert.

But people basically divide into two categories on this earth: those who think W3 stands for World Wide Web and those who know it is an area of London centred on Acton.

It's not that I am frightened by the Internet. Far from it, if only because such technology is so far beyond the technical grasp of most people as to be about as intrusive as intergalactic broomstick travel.

No, it is the jargon which the Internet has spawned which worries me most.

We network and interface and have done for a decade or more, but now when we go to cocktail gatherings, we are greeted not by waiters but by drink providers. Tupperware has been replaced by software. People I meet are on either online or downloaded. Everyone is a user.

And then once in a while, you find someone else who is also lost, bewildered, and confused. These are the people I get on with best. We just seem to double-click.

When it all gets too much, when Rams and Roms get confused with PPPs and TCPs and my IP initialisation string ties me up in knots and I feel a virus coming on, I just go into a quiet corner and take a couple of Pentium.

Did you know there is such a thing as “netiquette”, which frowns upon such unspeakable practices as spamming? And if you do spam you can expect a flaming. There are hot words, and smilies and gophers and no, it's no good asking me, I hadn't heard of any of this until a few minutes ago when I consulted a handy guide to the Internet. All it proved was that I have windows, but I am still in the dark.

There are plenty of acronyms too. The ISOC is the Internet Society. It has appointed the IAB, the Internet Architecture Board, which does not design computer hardware with mock-Tudor frontages and Corinthian columns, but meets to decide on data transfer protocols, whatever they are. The ISOC has also set up the IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which solves hardware faults.

But who needs all this stuff, and can the rest of us survive without it? In other words, are the nerds and non-nerds compatible? It depends on my baud rate, and whether I am two, four or six speed, and whether I have a killer bite.

In other words, it takes two to tango and, as Alexander Graham Bell discovered with the telephone, new technology is only as good as the person on the other end.

So no, you nerdy types, you can't access my interface or log on to my data retrieval upload down-mode secret code facility because my rusty Remington does not possess an input on-site hot-link point.

But I suspect it is only a matter of time before I give in and get a hard disk fitted. I suspect, sooner of later, we Luddites will be forced to conform, if only to keep our end up in an age in which the only form of communication will be electronic.

Why, this very morning a man telephoned me to find out if I was in so that he could fax me his new phone number. (Even we Luddites have fax machines.) Don't bother, I said, just tell me and I'll write it down.

Oh no, he said, you don't want to go to all that trouble. And then he faxed it.

So the world remains divided between the ares and the are-nots.

And according to the first demographic study of users of the Internet, 95&percent; are male, most are in their late 20s and early 30s, 45&percent; are professionals or in positions of managerial responsibility and 36&percent; are graduates or undergraduates.

Inevitably the vast majority (70&percent;) of all modem-toting, net surfing, Web footed nerdy types are in America, compared with 28&percent; in Europe and 2&percent; in Australia.

If you add up those figures very carefully you'll find that makes 100&percent; - which leaves the rest of the world totally uninhabited by computer types.

That is why I am standing on the side of the Information Super Highway right now, hitching a ride to some peaceful communications backwater.

If you want me, you'll have to find me first.

Here's a clue: my e-mail address will be Meade-dotty-brain-gone-at-last-must-dash-dash-dash.