Rockford Files was a creature of habit. It sometimes caused people to laugh at him when they saw him in his habit – but only once, for under the habit he was 6'9", something over 200 pounds, stronger than King Kong, and meaner than a hungry alligator. The habit came in useful for costume parties – Rockford usually sent it in his place when he was too relaxed to twist the character who'd invited him into a pretzel.

One of his habits was living the way he'd always lived. That meant he had The Trailer, which was big enough for an ordinary couple, but barely big enough for Rock. It meant that he had a Ford/Chevy/GM/who-knows-what pickup from the vintage years of 1957/1968/1942/1977/1801 ... or whatever the vintage years were for pickups that didn't have any original parts at all, and few parts that the manufacturer would have approved of. It meant that he had a desk in the yard only slightly smaller than Greenland.

Rock was sitting in his favorite chair looking at the desk. He popped the top of a can of Coke, drank it all in one swell foop, grabbed another and drank it, grabbed another and drank it ... and said, "Ah, that's a good way to start working on a thirst." He looked at the desk some more. It thought about looking back, but thought better of it; it remembered how Rockford had carried it by himself to its present position, after an army of movers armed with hammerhead cranes had given up on the weight.

Suddenly Rockford got a gleam in his eye. Shaking his head in annoyance, he wiped the gleam out so he could see again. The gleam had left behind an idea. "You know, things are too calm around here," he said. "Ruby ain't come around in years ... I guess she must o' fell into them shoes or something. I got McKay down there at Goffs guarding the billions for the Left-Handed Celtic Indian tribe, and Louise and Sondra have quit trying to steal it from him. What I'll do is get a computer and put it on that desk."

After sitting a minute he realized that he'd have to get the computer in order to get it, so he jammed his hat down on his head, walked to the truck, and set off for Needles at a pace just slightly slower than the speed of heat. Coming back he'd be going faster than the speed of heat – Needles was full of it, and he'd want to outrun it.

A few hours later Rockford pulled into the yard by The Trailer. In the bed of the truck was something that looked like a cross between Eniac, a defunct McDonald's, 4,200 pounds of scrap iron, the mess left after a fire in a plastics factory, and three worn out tires. The tires were extra; the seller had thrown them in when he realized that Rockford didn't recognize them. On top of the tires was a towel the seller had thrown in when he realized that Rockford was choking him as payment for the swindle.

Rock began unloading the truck. He hauled bits and pieces and parts and pots and pans and a Jews harp and Bob Dylan blowing his harmonica (which was much better than Bob Dylan pretending to sing) and three cymbals with someone pounding on them and a crate of motherboards and a soup tureen full of soup (which surprised everyone) and the North Star out of the bed of the truck. He tossed the star back into the sky, muttering about people who didn't know their place. He assembled the miscellaneous junk on the desk, and put the useful bits and pieces on the junk pile.

If this doesn't make sense to you, don't tell Rockford. He doesn't like people reminding him that he's senseless ... he tends to knock them that way. I remember the time when an editor woke up on the second Tuesday of next week...

So Rockford Files had a computer. It didn't work ... and it wasn't much of a computer anyway ... and very little of it was supposed to be a computer ... but finally Rockford could log onto a BBS somewhere and find out what all those people had been talking about all those years ago when Del and Slattery and the ax murderer and the ax murderer's brother ("What was the brother's name anyway?") and all the rest had acted like they knew what each other was saying.

I suggest we quietly steal away, and let Rock find out for himself that he's a tad bit behind the times.