The horror, the horror - computer meltdown, by Elizabeth Kay
I remember the old days, when I used to write everything in longhand, and then type it up on a manual typewriter with a sheet of carbon paper underneath, sometimes even two, and the Tippex at my elbow. A mistake often meant re-typing the whole of a chapter, and editing was literally a cut-and-paste job, which could get both messy and confusing. You posted something off with your heart in your mouth, as your top copy was the only one worth sending out. The photocopy shop charged by the sheet, and the expense was prohibitive. Then along came the ZX81, with its little silver strip of printout paper, followed by the Spectrum. And then, suddenly, there were Amstrads and Amigas and a revolution had taken place. Writers had deep philosophical conversations about whether writing straight onto a computer somehow hi-jacked the creative process, and whether our work would be the worse for it. And then along came PCs and Apple ...