Information Technology (IT) has been a passion. I started using the PC in 1984. It was a chore, but even then a vast improvement over electronic typewriters. I had to use either because I was studying at New York University, New York, and needed to submit typed papers. I also used the PC at work.

I longed for the Mac and after Macintosh SE was introduced in 1986, I bought one. It was fun. The tiny 9″ black and white screen seemed so crisp, the 1 MB RAM was blazingly fast, and the dot-matrix printer gave printouts in which fonts came out well and no matter what work you did, you could save it all on a 40MB hard drive.

I learnt the basics of using computers on the SE and then graduated to other Macs and IBM compatible machines. I still have my SE.

Now I use a computer that has a 40 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, which I would like to upgrade to 1 GB and I still use it for typing and processing graphics. I have two Macs at home and work on a PC in my office.

Like most users, ultimately, the technological details don’t matter. Computers are used for carrying out various tasks, and as long the machines do their job, I can do mine.

I have been writing on IT since 1991 and ran a weekly column called Computer Chat in The Tribune for many years. I also wrote articles and the main thrust has always been to demystify the cyber world and make it more accessible to regular readers.

On July 31, 2000, The Tribune became the first major Indian daily newspaper to launch a four page colour editorial supplement exclusively on IT. I had wonderful people helping me, including Kuljit Bains, Peeyush Agnihotri, and the team from the Internet Edition, who helped to acquaint ordinary readers about IT, its developments and potential. We all wrote extensively for the supplement that was discontinued on March 22, 2004.

My interest in IT continues, even as I write on it, and take care of the Internet Edition of The Tribune. www.tribuneindia.com