Once upon a time, the PC didn’t have a hard drive. My own first PC, an Amstrad, had twin floppies. One was used to install and run the operating system and the other was for storing data. Hard drives were something we simply dreamed about, in fact I don’t think I even knew what a hard drive was in those days. This was in the dim and faded past of the 1980s when even we nerds, gurus and gnus hadn’t been invented either. In those days you saved your data to Floppy disc, 5¼-inch on the Amstrad later to be replaced by the streamlined and ultra-cool 3½-inch floppy – which didn’t actually flop unless you took it out of it’s hard protective plastic case. In this hi-tech age we have done away with floppies and we have the hard drive, data sticks, DVD-RWs or the Cloud. Everything has changed since I tapped a command onto my first keyboard, a big orange one attached to an ICL-9000 mainframe. But has it changed for the better?

I’ve always been a fan of Microsoft. From the very first use of MSDOS (MicroSoft Disc Operating System) to the day I bought a copy of their R-Base database software (lovely smell when you opened the box) and right up to present day, I have loved Microsoft. Even when I had formatted and installed the new Windows 10 operating system and I got an error trying to activate it. Even then, when the helpful Nikita at Microsoft took control of my PC and sorted me out, I have loved Microsoft.

Right up until the point I discovered that not all of my data had been backed up to the cloud. It was at the point I discovered that the first draft of my latest novel, The Brittle Sea, has not been backed up, that was when my love affair with Microsoft came to an end. Ten thousand words down the drain and nothing to show for weeks of blood, sweat and tears. That most certainly was the point when my affair with Microsoft soured somewhat.

Bring back the floppy Microsoft, or heads will roll.

Tom Kane © 2017
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