How Apple Computer Saved My Brother's Life
(Written in 2015)
A long time ago in a decade far, far away, my brother and I were teenagers, residing at home with our parents. We lived in the era before computers. Well, not entirely the era before computers, but certainly a time before computers were a part of everyday life, in the average person’s home. And yet, curiously, we had a home computer.
The computer came from my brother’s school. My brother is autistic. He goes to a special school just for autistic people. He started there in 1973 and continues in their adult program to this day. The computer was donated to the school way back when by a computer geek who worked at Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI International), who happened to live near one of the kids at the school. He thought the students would benefit from using it.
The computer came from my brother’s school. My brother is autistic. He goes to a special school just for autistic people. He started there in 1973 and continues in their adult program to this day. The computer was donated to the school way back when by a computer geek who worked at Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI International), who happened to live near one of the kids at the school. He thought the students would benefit from using it.
Except no one at my brother’s school knew what to do with it. The school’s program director even thought it was a worthless device, calling it “that wretched machine”. So it gathered dust in the school’s office until she lost patience one day and wanted to throw it out. That’s when my mom stepped in. My mom offered to take the computer home with the agreement that if any of the teachers wanted to bring students over to use it, they were welcome. Which is how one of the earliest Apple computers, the Apple II, ended up in our house. This was the fall of 1978, several years before the first Apple Macintosh.
The computer, which required a small television as a monitor and a cassette deck to run its software, lived in my parents’ bedroom. It sat unused for quite some time. Then somewhere in early winter of 1979, I found myself drawn to it. I was in 8th grade, all of 13 years old. I began to play around with it, reading the user’s manual and teaching myself to program. I vaguely remember programming little things like a calculator, a calendar, and a game that was something like Mastermind.
A quick side note: looking back at this time, there’s great personal irony here for me on two levels. Number one, I actually taught myself to program by reading an instruction manual. I hate instruction manuals! I do so much better when someone shows me how to do something and I can take notes. That’s how I learn best. So it’s funny to think of my younger self actually learning from a manual.
Second irony: I am so not a programmer! I gave it a valiant effort a couple of times in my life – in early high school and then again in my early 30s, when I attempted to get a second college degree in computer science. I realized then that I really, really, really dislike programming! I hate not being able to visualize what I’m doing. So again, it’s funny seeing this younger version of myself actually enjoying programming. But back to the story…
My brother, who was 16 at the time, ignored the Apple II completely, at least at first. He wouldn’t have had the ability to do programming anyway, as that requires a type of abstract conceptual thinking involving words and coding that was not possible given his severe level of autism. His communication and processing skills are very limited.
Years later my parents would get him a tablet that connected to the Apple II so he could draw pictures. And by then, there was a rudimentary text editing program in which he liked to type very simple stories. But back in 1979, he couldn’t be bothered. He’d rather be watching TV or building complex structures with his Lego blocks.
So that’s how I found myself spending winter evenings of 1979 playing around on the computer that had come from my brother’s school. At that time of night, my parents would usually be at the other end of the house. We lived in a 1950s California ranch-style house that was U shaped. The bedrooms and bathrooms were on one wing; the kitchen, dining room, family room, and my dad’s office were on the other. The living room and entrance connected the two wings. After dinner, my mom would usually be doing dishes while my dad would be in his office doing whatever dad stuff he did. My brother would be watching TV or taking his bath (as he didn’t like showers).
One night, I’m in my parent’s bedroom working away on the computer when all of the sudden I hear my brother thrashing around in the bathtub. It sounded at first like he was making percussive noises (thumpa thumpa thumpa), something that wasn’t entirely unusual for him. Except the percussive noises were accompanied by the sound of water splashing about (thumpa/slosh thumpa/slosh thumpa/slosh) and were repetitively consistent which would not have been usual for him.
When it dawned on me that the percussive noises weren’t stopping, I knew something wasn’t right so I ran to the other end of the house to get my mom. Both parents ran back to the bathroom to find my brother having a seizure in the bathtub. Seizures were not uncommon for autistic people of his generation when they enter adolescence, but at this point they were still fairly new for him and us. I think it was only his second one, and the only one he ever had in the tub. Apparently my parents found him blue from having swallowed water during his seizure. Basically he was drowning. Somehow they got him out (I was not witness to any of this) and were able to resuscitate him. The paramedics were called and a fire truck and ambulance came. Once he came to, my brother was ultimately very pleased at all the commotion and sirens and flashing lights. He turned out ok.
But had I not been at that end of the house, in my parents’ bedroom, working on the computer that had come from my brother’s school because no one knew what to do with it, then no one would’ve heard my brother having a seizure in the bathtub and he would’ve drowned.
That’s how Apple computer saved my brother’s life.
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