GoKawiilRebuilding the computer room
One of my distinct memories of childhood is the “computer room”. When I was young, computers weren’t a ubiquitous feature of our lives; they were bulky appliances with a fixed location, and you had to go somewhere to use them.
At home, it was my parents’ study. The first computer I remember using is their iMac G3, which is about as portable as a small tree.
At my grandparents’ house, it was their office in the corner of the house. Their desktop PC was far from the kitchen, bedrooms, and living room, sandwiched between the coat rack and the washing machine.
At school, it was classrooms with computers shoved in haphazardly, maximising the number of screens above all else. Outside the IT department, computers had their own desks. If a teacher wanted to use the computer in their classroom, they’d get up from their regular desk and move to the computer chair.
Even in buildings which didn’t have a dedicated room, computers still had a fixed location. If you wanted to use a computer, you had to go to it – whereas today, computers follow us around.
The laptop was the first device to test the walls of the computer room. Early laptops were limited compared to desktop computers – they were slower, battery-constrained, satellite devices to your main machine. If you wanted files on your desktop to be available on your laptop, you had to copy them manually using a floppy disk or a flash drive. You could use them to work from the sofa or the kitchen table, but they were so compromised that it was rarely your first choice.
Over time, laptops got better. They got faster processors, better battery life, and wireless networking. Laptops became more convenient for more types of task, and soon they were good enough to be your primary computing device.
Laptops promised a previously unknown level of computing freedom, the idea that you could now work from anywhere – a beach, a coffee shop, a couch. We welcomed the change, because the physical constraints of a desktop computer suddenly felt like an unnecessary friction.
Yet, some physical restrictions remained – laptops were still heavy and bulky objects. They were something you had to carry in bags, and not something you’d take out casually. There were lots of places where you’d never see or use a laptop.
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