World & History · A Decembers list
The first time a machine did something you'd never seen before
The floppy disk clicked into the drive and the screen turned that particular shade of blue. Someone leaned over your shoulder to watch. You had no idea yet whether any of this would matter.
This is where those first encounters go. One line for the make, the room, and what you did with it first — more when a moment earns it.
Free to start. Private from the first word.
Where this list lives
This is a list in Decembers — the place a life gets written down one question at a time.
Decembers asks the questions no one thought to ask, keeps the answers in one permanent Chronicle, and holds them on one Timeline that reads in order. You answer. Decembers does the writing.
- Lists
- A list for every kind of life, and every turn one takes. Pick one and start answering.
- Timeline
- Your answers arrange themselves in order. Seeing a whole life laid out this way is something else.
- Inner Circle
- Not social media. The few people you name are the only ones it is ever shared with.
Begin with one list. The rest follows.
One line is enough
Write down the first computer that sat on your desk and the room comes back — the hum of the fan, the manual thick as a phone book, the person who set it up and stood there waiting for you to try it.
The record books keep the release dates and the model numbers. They don't keep the fact that your brother-in-law had it first and wouldn't stop talking about it, or that you were afraid to touch the keys too hard, or that the first thing you ever typed was your own name just to see it appear. Those details don't live in any archive. They live in the person who was in the room, and they fade unless someone sets them down.
A book about all of this never gets written, because it feels too small — who wants a chapter on a dial tone? But a list doesn't ask for a chapter. It asks for one line: what it was, where you were, what you did with it first. You can add the Nokia today and the punch cards next week. The people who come after you grew up with all of it and none of the wonder. A single line tells them there was a first time, and that you were there for it.
How it works
- 01
Pick this list
It’s waiting, already written. There is no blank page to face.
- 02
Fill in what comes
A year, a line, a photograph. Five minutes or an hour.
- 03
Invite who was there
They add what you forgot. You decide what stays.
- 04
Share it, or don’t
One quiet page for your Inner Circle. No link, no feed.
The first encounters that come up most
The first computer in the house
The one that arrived in a box too big for the desk and stayed on until you learned to type. Maybe a TRS-80, an Apple II, an IBM clone with a beige tower and a monitor that weighed forty pounds. You remember the manual, the disk that came with it, and the hour it took to set up something that does nothing now.
The first time you went online
The modem noise everyone can still hum. The account you signed up for — a free disk in the mail, a coworker who told you which service to use. The first page you loaded, the first email you sent, and the strange feeling of typing into the dark and having someone type back.
The first phone you carried
The one that fit in a pocket, or nearly. A flip phone, a candy bar, an antenna you pulled up with your teeth. You remember who you called first, how you rationed the minutes, and the day you realized you no longer needed to find a pay phone.
Decade by decade
- 1960s-70s
- Mainframes and terminals, punch cards and teletypes, computing you had to sign up for and wait your turn to touch.
- 1980s
- The home computer arrived — Commodore, Atari, Apple, the IBM PC — along with cassette tapes, 5.25-inch floppies, and games you typed in yourself.
- Early 1990s
- Windows, the CD-ROM, the first car phone or bag phone, and bulletin boards you dialed into one line at a time.
- Late 1990s
- America Online disks in every mailbox, the screech of dial-up, your first email address, and a web you browsed one slow page at a time.
- 2000s
- The flip phone in every pocket, broadband that stayed on, digital cameras, and the first time you carried the internet with you.
- 2010s
- The smartphone that replaced the phone, the camera, the map, and the letter — and made you forget what a busy signal sounded like.
Other lists you may like
Start with any one of them. Every answer lands on the same Timeline.
Begin
A record of the first time each machine surprised you
Every device you use without a thought once made you lean in and hold your breath. Start with the one you remember most clearly — the make, the room, and what you did with it first.