Everyone should own at least one book of Bukowski poetry: in addition to computers he wrote about cats, going to the track, drinking and other things his life. I remember riding the train from Dresden to Prague and the person next to us was reading his novel Post Office which is a wonderful story of irresponsibility.
Reading Bukowski often makes me yearn for a life that could have been. An often miserable, always irresponsible, but often wonderful life. Of course, his real life was probably far less glamorous than he makes it sound, but, man, did he have a way with words.
I never knew about this poem. It's a factual observation of that era of computing.
To this day, people getting into retro computing are disappointed by the Tandy 2000 and other non-PC compatible MS-DOS machines. (I get it, having passed up on an AT&T 6300. But if you wanted to give me a DEC Rainbow or Zenith Z-100 I wouldn't say no).
I was curious about what was happening with the domain name here (after all, shkspr.mobi has nothing to do with Shakespeare) so imagine my delight at discovering it was an actual poem and my vague notion that I’ve been to the site for poetry in the past was, in fact, correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_(novel)
You can read the full letter from which this quote was taken, along with a short bio, here: https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/08/12/charles-bukowski-j...
To this day, people getting into retro computing are disappointed by the Tandy 2000 and other non-PC compatible MS-DOS machines. (I get it, having passed up on an AT&T 6300. But if you wanted to give me a DEC Rainbow or Zenith Z-100 I wouldn't say no).