It is amazing to look back at all the technological changes that underpin my writing. When I started writing my Residua, I first wrote everything by hand. Having gone through the text several times, I would use a typewriter to render it in its final form. Only rarely would I write directly into the typewriter even though I had one of my own since the early Sixties. In expectation of the upcoming addenda, each piece of writing went on its own page. More often than not, discovering a typo was a nuisance, for it meant that an entire text had to be retyped. At the end of a year, I would collect my writings into a yearbook, take it to a xerox shop, and make a bunch of copies for my closest friends. That is how it was in the late Seventies.

In the early Eighties I got an electric typewriter, which made typing much easier. For a while I had an electronic typewriter that would memorize a small number of words, which I would print out when all the typos were removed. That helped a bit, but not very much. My first personal computer changed things radically. I had one in the office and another one at home. Once a typo was fixed, it was fixed for ever. But I would still have to print everything out on my computer printer and then go to a xerox shop to produce my yearbooks. As copying got cheaper by the late Eighties, I would make copies of all the yearbooks at once. My closest friends had more and more on their hands.

In the early Nineties I spread my wings a bit, and I started pasting my shorter texts on postcards. The number of friends quickly grew. My computer printer got busier and busier. By and by, many of the postcards also went to people I did not know personally. At some point I would send as many as two-hundred and fifty postcards a day. In mid-Nineties I decided to print a book with a selection of my writings, though. Three-hundred copies were made. Many of them were distributed to friends, but some were sold to acquaintances, as well. All the while, my postcards were my forte still. Some of my friends responded, and their responses were included in my addenda.

By the late Nineties, I switched to electronic postcards. Again, the number of my friends grew all the time. My electronic postcards went to a growing number of people I did not know personally, as well. A few times a day, my writings would reach several hundred people at a time. The number of responses grew. Limited no longer by what could be pasted on a postcard, my texts also grew in size. The addenda kept piling up with ever more responses from my friends.

By the turn of the millennium I put all my writings on a website. Everything was out there, but the technology was rather awkward when it came to updating my Residua. This was a real nuisance concerning the addenda. On occasion it took months for the new writings to appear on the World Wide Web, and thus I continued with my electronic postcards. The number of recipients waxed and waned, but it was always large. Every now and then I would send around a few real postcards, but their number gradually dwindled. They were fun, but they took too much of my time.

Everything changed one more time when my writings were transferred to blogging software. My website looked more or less the same, but now I could post my texts whenever I wished. New addenda were equally easy to post. In addition, readers could send me their feedback whenever they wished. At long last, my Residua became live, and I abandoned my electronic postcards. The real postcards came nearly to a stop. I still send a few of them around, but that happens ever more rarely.

And now I have a portable computer with which I can access my website at will. Quite often I write directly into the blogging software and post my texts from anywhere I happen to be. Only then I transfer the new text into my files, which serve mainly for safekeeping. From time to time, selections from my Residua on different topics appear in print as smallish books, but the publication of everything I have written has become impracticable. It would take several bulky volumes to put everything in print. Once posted on the web, my writings are published, anyway.

All of these changes have also affected my writing. I rarely write anything by hand any longer. As a consequence, my handwriting is going from bad to worse. My notebooks, which I always have on me, take ever longer to fill. If I do not have my portable computer with me, I prefer my mobile phone to the notebook. In a year or two, I will have a portable computer and mobile phone in one. The distinction will disappear altogether. Wherever I find myself, I will post my writings on the web as soon as I have completed them. The only trouble with all these changes in technology since the late Seventies is that I hear ever less often from my friends. The closer I have become to all and sundry, the farther I have gotten from those few people who used to read my writings in earnest. As well as comment on them. Technology, technology.