You know, I decided which Catholic high school to attend after I put my fingers on the keyboards of their brand-new C64 machines. [The other Catholic school only had PET systems at the time.]
I learned how to type there, and the rest was history. I owned a VIC20 already, and Dad purchased peripherals such as the 1541 and the 1701.
It wasn’t until 3-4 years ago when I began to study history, Irish history in particular, and recognized that the model numbers weren’t chosen arbitrarily or accidentally, but indeed they correlated perfectly to the most ignominious dates in the history of the UK, when anti-Catholic laws were passed and the Irish were stomped into submission.
It makes weird sense in retrospect. I mean, nobody ever taught Irish history in school because we are Americans now, and the whole Reformation thing is water under the bridge. And the superior general has a distinctly posh RP accent.
Much like the “bitten apple” and its rainbow colors and the $666 price tag, these signs and symbols were hidden in plain sight, as harbingers and warning signs of future troubles. We were all working for the construction crew on a modern Tower of Babel. Literally.