I am seeking a highly intelligent and ambitious individual with a penchant for world domination and a god complex. The successful candidate will be responsible for creating and executing diabolical plans to achieve ultimate power and control.
Key Responsibilities:
Developing and implementing complex schemes to gain global dominance
Building an army of loyal henchpersons and minions
Constructing a secret lair with state-of-the-art technology (lasers and mechas)
Creating advanced weapons and gadgets to use in your nefarious schemes
Outsmarting and defeating superhero adversaries
Gloating about your brilliance and successes to all who will listen
Qualifications:
Advanced degree in a relevant field (e.g. science, engineering, physics)
Proven track record of successful villainous activities
Strong leadership and organizational skills
Excellent communication and persuasion abilities
Ability to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions
My first PC was a used IBM PC XT that I bought for around $300 at a little Mom & Pop shop. It had a 10MB full height HDD and a full-height 5.25” floppy drive. I installed a 1200 baud modem in it and it came with DOS 3.2. I can’t remember how much RAM it had in it, but it did come with a green monochrome monitor and a big clickity clack solid IBM keyboard. They don’t make them like the used to.
IBM PC XT with green phosphorus display, image from Wikipedia.
My second PC was an IBM-compatible Compaq 386 All-in-one Portable (the “lunchbox”). The Compaq III and the Compaq 386 portables used the same case, form factor and screw locations.
Compaq Portable, image from Wikipedia
It predated laptops. Mine had a half-height 5.25” floppy disk drive that supported up to 1.2MB disks, and a 40MB half-height HDD. It ran DOS 3.2. Mine had the 1200 baud internal modem. The display was a gas plasma CGA/MDA grayscale (orange) monochrome that could display at 3 resolutions, 600×400, 600×200 and 320×200. It was configured out of the box for CGA but could be changed to MDA mode by changing a jumper on the board inside the case.
It was portable, but heavy, as it weighed about 20 lbs. It had a big black nylon shoulder bag you could tote it around if you needed a boat anchor. The screen slid down flush against the case, was raised and lowered like opening a window, and the keyboard locked onto it with the keys towards the screen to fit it into the nylon bag.
It was easy to upgrade. I think I swapped the 1200 baud modem for a 2400, but it didn’t take full sized ISA cards, due to the limitations of the plastic case size. Half-size worked just fine. It had a parallel port and a couple of serial ports on it.
I got it used in 1992 as payment for creating the ANSI user interface screens for a DLX BBS for a programmer “friend”. This was back when nerdy gals were very few. I spent a lot of hours punching in alt codes to “draw” all the screens including the initial splash screen you got when you first dialed in. Hehe
I gave it to a another friend back in the mid 1990s. I wonder if he still has it. 😁
Essays From the Edge of Existence 
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