We raise a glass to techt going backwards

This issue Ken Rigsby is crying into his pint over...

Five hundred issues, hey? I reckon that means Computeractive has printed somewhere in the region of 100 million copies, and perhaps a total of 10 billion pages. I know the editor will want to check that figure with me. So yes, let’s call it 10 billion.

We’ve changed a lot since Issue 1 in 1998. Colleagues have come and gone, and stale sections have been replaced by fresh ones. And why not? Things can’t stand still. I mean, if we hadn’t regularly updated our content then we’d still have a two-page section dedicated to reviewing CD-ROMS. Sometimes we’d theme it: Animals! Days out! Adult games! I think once we even combined all three, and the result was akin to a party political conference.

But that was then. I can’t imagine that many readers would be thrilled if we regressed by reintroducing our CD-ROMS section. Still, the nostalgia of this issue has got me thinking that no matter how much Computeractive has evolved there are some aspects of technology that seem to have regressed.

A few months ago in this column I recalled that in the Nineties it was normal to expect a week’s use from a single charge of your mobile phone. Now a full battery lasts a day if you’re lucky. But that’s not the only thing that’s gone backwards in the past couple of decades. In fact, I reckon I can think of at least five more. So here goes.

At number five, knobs. Over the years I’ve spent plenty of time twiddling knobs, if you’ll pardon the expression. But these days when I want to adjust my monitor’s brightness or contrast, I have to squint my way through incomprehensible icons on a tiny menu. Buttons and menus might seem more high-tech, but they’re not as quick or simple as twiddling a dial.

Next up, pins. No, not my legs – although the knees aren’t what they were – but dot-matrix printers. Obviously, I don’t miss the noise, but have you ever tried getting an inkjet printer to create a carbon copy? And that’s not all. I knew when my old Star Micronics dot matrix was running low on ink because pages would gradually fade. Now, with chipped cartridges, the first I know about low ink is when it’s time to take out a second mortgage to buy replacements.

In at number three – repairability. Or rather, the impossibility of fixing things that previously could have been easily remedied. Swapping faulty memory modules or a hard drive is still simple enough – even on laptops – but many modern gadgets are effectively irreparable. Can you think of a single bit of your smartphone or tablet that you’d dare to repair yourself? That’s the problem.

At two is digital-rights management. Back in the heyday of dodgy Bittorrent services search engines like The Pirate Bay meant people could grab movies or shows that weren’t available to buy. Now, those same people can download only what a bunch of lawyers and marketing executives have decided should be available in any particular week. I’m certain that many a Pirate Bay user would have happily paid for the stuff they downloaded if only someone had made it possible. Now we have the mechanism, but so much great content remains legally unavailable.

Finally, social media. Back in 1998, Computeractive’s social-media ‘strategy’ involved the team going out for a few drinks after work. But now, for the selfie-addicted public, social media means boasting about the good times you’re pretending to have, when in fact you haven’t chatted to a human being in the flesh since the advent of Facebook and Twitter.

Mind you, even the idea of ‘human beings’ may seem quaint by the time another 500 issues have passed. Come back in 2036 to find out whether we’ve morphed into cyborgs and read my nostalgia piece about the good ol’ days of Facebook.

Back in 1998, Computeractive’s

social-media strategy was going out for drinks after work