Good call. Like how I used to drag highlight boxes on the desktop when I was thinking of what to do next. I never wanted to select anything, I just liked to do it.
Me too. I desperately wanted to turn that feature off but never managed to find a way. I can't tell you how many times I was just jiggling a window around (usually the browser, while I thought something through or tried to work out what I was going to do next), and all of a sudden my other windows got minimized.
Before that it used to be holding the shift key for 5 seconds while I paused to think. That was especially infuriating if you didn't notice and ended up with 'sticky keys'.
I've replaced the highlight desktop habit with type in URLs and press enter habit. "n<CR>" to get to HN is definitely one of them. But not to get to HN, but just because I'm in deep thought or making a decision.
This could probably fill an entire separate thread but I love this thought. I am only just now remembering that I actually used to sit down at a computer and .. wait for it.. FINISH. I'd do something.. be done. Then I'd go do something else.
I remember something similar, though the real cause of my time on the computer ending was because I was on dialup and that would tie up the phone line. This was back when I was much younger and with my parents, but after my family moved all of our phones off the landline and to cellular, we ended up getting a lot more use out of the computer. After all, the computer only had entertainment purposes if you had a movie or a game, and all our games were the single player sort. So, with the advent of the Internet, there were things to do on the computer to pass the time, like browse webrings and forums or try and fail to learn Esperanto (and RPG Maker 95, which probably contributed a lot to my interest in game development).
Before all that, I spent a lot of time climbing trees and wanting to be an architect and writer (the latter of which I've been pursuing for a while now). My brother and I'd drag planks into trees and we'd build little things we called forts and make up our own currencies (using the tabs on soda cans, for example), we'd play with our family's chickens and cats, and we'd grouse about picking up fallen apples (because it was boring) and so on. Odd to think how little of any of that I'd get away with now -- now I'd suffer some odd looks from folks for climbing a tree that looked especially climbable. Really, the computer was just for Doom and Encarta and writing book reports. That's just rambling though and not all that interesting or indicative of any change other than growing up a bit.
Unfortunately, I was a child back then, so my memory of pre-Internet computer use is probably different than that of someone who was an adult the entire way through. Would be nice to see a bunch of people writing about it - not so much about how computers and the 'net changed things, but what they were like beforehand without concerning themselves too much with the difference between now and then.
To be honest, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it wasn't to do with "thinking of what to do next", perhaps I just made that up in my memories.
However, I have clear memories of dragging boxes back and forth. They are so clear that I even remember inching the edge of the box closer and closer to the edge of an icon and seeing when it would select it. Also, I remember making the box thinner and thinner until it would either disappear, or you would get a single thick line when the dashed lines on either side were lined up with each other.
The only thing I don't remember is why or when I did it :)
