Introduction

I remember as a ten-year-old kid being so excited about my new prize possession. Gifted to me by my uncle, I was the proud new owner of a matte white, Commodore Vic 20 personal computer. The year was 1981. As I recall, I barely knew what to do with it and had no idea what it was actually capable of, but I was determined to use it even if it meant playing Space Invaders until I could dream of nothing but Blue Meanies (and I think I did). Thus began my love affair with technology. It’s true that life may have been more or less the same 20 years ago, but it’s hard to believe that we didn’t have laptop computers, faxes were still a luxury, and iPods and cell phones weren’t even imagined:

“Those of us who take Second Life seriously like to compare it to the Web in 1994. The Web back then was slow, and a lot of the technologies we take for granted today hadn’t been invented yet. Indeed, many smart people believed in 1994 that nobody would ever trust the Internet for e-commerce.”—Mitch Wagner