Computers

ON COMPUTERS




Computers are a modern miracle. They have brought the whole world into the living room. New horizons and opportunities, have opened up

My first computer was a Texas Instrument that I had picked up from my brother in law. For some reason, he felt that he had outgrown it and needed to upgrade. I found this to be a totally insane statement, as this piece of modern technology, was as far as I was concerned, “state of the art”.

Surely there could be no further innovation in this field, No, to be sure the computer era had indeed reached its apex, and anything from this point on was only to be old news. There was simply nothing left that it could do.

Now this new piece of furniture in my living room, weighed about eighty-five pounds it seems to me. To move it, required the use of a two-wheeled dolly, and at the very least, two beer breaks. (If of course you were not leaving your house, this required a special license and a heavy load vehicle)

When you powered this monster on. You simply needed to throw three switches, ensure that the supplied heavy-duty lead was plugged securely into the special wall socket, and then wait merely ten to fifteen minutes until it came to life. After the curser twinkled to life on the screen, a mere hundred to a hundred and fifty keystrokes, in the correct sequence of course, and you were able to push in the game cartridge, and play a spirited game of Pong.

Now Pong at the time was an awe-inspiring game. A tiny whit square moved across the screen at what seemed to be breakneck speed, and was re directed, if you had reflexes fast enough to move the paddle and re direct it. This took a great deal of co-ordination, as the keys had to be pressed fast enough (and in the right direction) to move the paddle and block the progress of this elusive little dot on the screen. If you missed it, it flew off the screen, and you would have to re load the game, which in most cases took longer than most of my game!

Once I became a pro at Pong, (which meant I lasted longer than forty five seconds) I felt that it was time to move on to bigger and better things.

The look of awe that must have crossed my face, when one Sunday afternoon, my brother in law, the computer whiz kid, came over, and with as little as two hours of time, made a fish swim across my screen, with real bubbles coming from its mouth! The fish was of course made from all tiny x marks that he had told the system to use, but at that time it was the greatest fish I had ever seen.

I have progressed since that first computer, however it appears that my abilities are still in the Pong stage. And I must admit here and now that yes, I was wrong. As hard as you may find that to believe. Computers did in fact evolve from that original system.

In my world of computers, the side panel is never on mine, it seems that I am constantly looking in trying to decipher the problem. Poking and prodding, the special flashlight I have just for that job illuminating the inside and showing me a world that I have absolutely no idea about. I do know that a computer has a RAM memory, and I have a theory that, it will hold as much information as I can ram into it before it crashes and I have to re-load the whole thing. The great thing about that is every few weeks when my system crashes, I get a whole new one!

Over the years I have accumulated a number of valuable parts, (my son in law calls them junk, but I know better because I am older and wiser) these parts like the ties I have in my cupboard since 1974, will come back and be usable again. I have power supplies from computers that were made 10 years ago, but, being a true re-cycler, I keep holding them. From time to time when I go into my local computer store, I will walk up to the sales person, scratch my chin, and enquire what type of power supply it has, just in case my old one has returned to use and I can demand a higher premium for it from any one that was not wise enough to squirrel theirs away.

Now understand, my oldest daughters husband, is a computer geek, I think that in the dictionary under that word it has a picture of him. He like my brother in law is able to do things to computers that I can only stare off into the distance and dream about. For example, they can keep them operating! They constantly talk to me about, bits and bytes, and megs, and a list of acronyms that are a mile long. I smile and nod, occasionally ask a question using the words that I have heard them use, as if I knew what they meant, and soak in the answer with avid enthusiasm, my mind working like Homer Simpson, a giant “DUH” taking over the space that is supposed to be reserved for the answer I am hearing.

I am fortunate I will admit, to have a direct line to my computer technician. He has been very tolerant of my shortcomings I must tell you. I did however hear a rumor that he was taping my conversations and taking them to work to play around the water cooler during break for his associates. I will have to question my daughter on this one a little further when I see her. Of course in actual fact I admire what he has done, and learned, and the wisdom he has imparted to me, has been invaluable.

I did get a copy one time of computers for dummies, and I have to admit it is very well written, if you are a NASA scientist. I guess that it is indeed very hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and as I am constantly reminded by both of my daughters I am truly, and old dog.

I am at the point now that when I call to get information from either of them I can almost understand what it is they are talking about. I can muddle through a format when I have to re load my system, get most of the programs back up and running, and check my email. I do however keep my copy of computers for dummies close by when I am speaking to them, in case a new word crops up that I have not hears before, and usually before either of then visit me I write crib notes on my sleeve, just in case!

I do however have a brand new computer, it is I will tell you just wonderful, and I would like to thank the technicians for putting in the optional programs that assist me every day. My favorite by far is the controls, alt, kick option, which seems to works with such great effectiveness, that I do not understand why it is not a standard feature on all computer systems.

With one computer that I owned, I calculated that, with the number of times it had been unplugged, and taken to my son in laws to be, fixed, or returned to at least an operational version of what it once was, it had more miles on it than the space shuttle. If warranty had been in miles instead of months, it would have expired the first week that I got it!

There are still a number of nagging questions about computers, the way they run and their general uses, perhaps someone can help me to fill in a few of the gaps that are still puzzling me. I guess the biggest question would have to be, why with all this modern technology available, access to any information in the world, does the computer require you to select start, to turn it off? Does this seem ridiculous to any one other than me? Another little annoyance I find is, if you save a picture to your files, the computer demands to know, save as what. With all of its intelligence, is it not bright enough to decipher if it is a picture, or a letter, or some other type of document?

The use of acronyms also puzzles me, I was using the word WYSIWYG, for months before I actually knew what it meant, but did it make me look good when I was with anyone that knew even less that I did about computers! (which I must admit was limited to the neighbor’s son, who was barely two, and the German Shepard from down the road. RAM as I said earlier I have pretty well figured out, but there is ROM, BIOS, (which I have come to understand has something to do with the way a computer starts up) GIG, MPEGS, JPG, and a host of others that I must admit I use on a regular basis, and have generally no clue as to their meaning.

I have found that the best way to “talk computer” with these technical wizards I have in my family, is to simply adopt an all knowing stare, and do a lot of nodding and smiling. It doesn’t hurt to occasionally, throw in a little chuckle at their humerous anecdotes that they relate about their problems with the systems that they work with. Even when you don’t understand a single word or phrase, if they laugh, I have found, so should you. If any of these people offer to “fix” or enhance your computer for you, I would take advantage of it, and then set three to five hours aside, to scour the internet after they have gone, to find out exactly what the changes they made were, and how to undo them, if you have no idea how to use them.

I think that my lack of skills in this technology come to the surface mostly, when I see a young ten to twelve year old sitting at a computer somewhere working on it, and I have absolutely no idea of what they are doing. They rap away on the keys and produce amazing results, typing at a speed that I thought was reserved for fast cars and airplanes. I sit back and contemplate this from time to time as I work on my keyboard, using the basic, seek and peck, and wearing both my index fingers down to little nubs, simply to reply to an email, and once done, and hitting the send key, try to re-assure myself that the words are not flying off into cyber space somewhere, and checking the send receive button three times in the next few minutes, to see if it has been returned by that guy that sits there doing nothing all day but respond to lost emails. Although I must admit, some of this is my envy coming through, as I really want that job!

I again have to admit, if not for the assistance of my technical whiz kids, I would be typing this on a manual typewriter, and using an abacus to keep track of the pages, (which, being a bit of a pack rat, I still have squirreled away somewhere, just in case) The computer craze has advanced so far so fast, that when you buy a new computer, take it home, and unbox it, it has become, obsolete. I guess that is why I have a hard time validating why I still have 4 sticks of 16 Mb RAM sitting on my shelf, despite the fact that it is of no value, other than perhaps to a museum, and that it is not even the same type (as apparently my son in law tells me) that my computer uses. But you never know, I might just come across an old computer that has not yet been retro fit into a boat anchor that I can fix up, sit in the corner with the rest of my “techy stuff” and admire it, after several stiff shots of Gibson’s Gold.

I once thought that the novelty of a computer, would wear off, and that one day while going through my “stash of stuff” I would find this old first computer that I had, and resurrect it like a phoenix rising from the ashes. But the truth is, I think I am now almost, willing to admit, that it never will come back into fashion, and the game cartridges and parts I have for it, will probably not be usable in some future computer that I may get.

But still, I cling to the hope that this is simply a passing thought, and that my grandson will one day open the box, and look in, only to find this wonderful piece of technology, and either, play on it as it had been intended, or sell it on Antiques Road show, and make his fortune from it