Ben-Hur on a Computer Screen

This is a “crônica” about my relationship with computers in Brazil in the 1990s.

The crônica is a uniquely Brazilian format that emerged in Brazilian newspapers in the 19th century. The crônica is very short. It is characterized by a mix of fact, subjectivity, and often fiction that is supposed to reflect or say something about reality (this one has no fiction). Oddly enough, I wrote this crônica directly in English. It was an interesting experience to write something so profoundly Brazilian in English.

Crônicas are often slice-of-life.

This reminded me of watching "little big man" on a nascent Sony portable tv-radio-cassette where the TV was a 4" tube, along the side (ie not flat face on the biggest surface) because tv tube production methods demanded a minimum length front-to-back to get coils around the "gun"

So I was watching Custer's charge from left to right, across about 3" of travel. Fantastic! The future is now. Only 4kg of pluggable, luggable break-your-arm heavy device. This was the end of the 70s. Boomboxes were big anyway.