I am a dinosaur.

The reports of the impending death of the PC are not greatly exaggerated. The PC is yesterday’s technology, its demise hastened by smartphones, tablets and the cloud-computing services that make large-capacity computing devices unnecessary.

But I am part of a shrinking minority, still doing most of my work on PCs. In my case, they are Linux-powered PCs, but that is not the point. I would still be a dinosaur if I used Mac OS X or Windows.

You’ve probably seen the numbers that show what an oddity I am. Gartner reported that worldwide PC shipments dropped by 9.6% in 2016’s first quarter. IDC said: No, it was worse. By its count, the PC market dropped by 11.5%. The two firms agreed that fewer than 65 million units shipped. That’s the worst the PC market has been since 2007. Even Apple saw Mac sales drop by 12% year over year in its latest quarter.

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