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I'm not going to ask this on the tech forum: I strongly suspect the posters there never lived without a computer.
So did one of your kids/grandkids show you? Did you take classes someplace? Did it come naturally
or does your mind go into system overload when someone talks to you about cookies, applets, upgrades, and such?
I'm not going to ask this on the tech forum: I strongly suspect the posters there never lived without a computer.
So did one of your kids/grandkids show you? Did you take classes someplace? Did it come naturally
or does your mind go into system overload when someone talks to you about cookies, applets, upgrades, and such?
When I was room mates with my cousin he bought himself a computer and I sort of 'took it over'. lol At first I was afraid to touch it. Figured I'd probably figure out a way to 'break it'. That was 15 years ago and I haven't looked back. I did take a couple of courses at the community college as well to learn stuff like Power Point, etc.. Even after all these years I'm still, pretty much, computer illiterate though.
Learn? Hmmmm let's hope they keep making it simpler. I remember when we found our first bug in the computer. It was a moth about the size of a quarter.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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My brother in law started a company that built computers after college about 1976, and we had one in our house. It had 64K memory, and two 8" floppy drives. We used it for spreadsheets and word processing. When my employer go their first IBM PC in about 1982 I was one of the first to use it. Due to the nature of my work at the time I eventually got a "Fat Mac" that could emulate the PC and also mainframe terminal using some added 3rd party hardware. I never had any classes or training, it's been self taught ever since. Currently part of my duties are as system administrator for a database management/billing system, and besides it I use several business intelligence tools, some SQL, and the normal MS office products. It's a lot easier now with the internet, you can get help in seconds if you get stuck trying to figure something out. Back in the beginning we had no one who could answer questions.
Used computer consoles in the Navy during the early 70s and built my first home computer in 1981, a Heathkit H89. This was during my undergraduate days where I majored in Computer Science. Guess that means that I've been around the silly things most of my adult life.
I learned to type in high school. It was the most valuable course I've taken ... ever. I moved from typewriters to computers way so long ago. I continue to upgrade my computer skills because computers/data use is an essential part of my job.
When my son was about four years old, in the late 1980s, I bought him a computer (IBM PC-Jr, running DOS of course) so that he could play "educational" computer games. Nobody I knew at the time had a computer, so I taught myself and then taught him. Within a month the two of us were squabbling over who gets to use the computer when, so I bought a second one for myself.
If I recall, the word processing program on it was WordPerfect and it had less than 200K of memory. Hard to imagine nowadays, LOL
It wasn't until the Windows era (several computer generation/purchases later) that we decided to get online access though.
I've always regarded computers as fascinating toys. It was definitely a plus to have "cut my teeth" on the DOS systems though, because learning how that worked gave me a functional understanding which the Windows overlay essentially hides away behind the graphic interface.
Learn? Hmmmm let's hope they keep making it simpler. I remember when we found our first bug in the computer. It was a moth about the size of a quarter.
So do your kids post for you!
I learned thru work. What impresses me is that my iPhone has more computing power than the home computer I used 10 years ago!
I worked for a major corporation. One day they sent a memo that over night we would lose all the typewriters and every desk would have a computer. That next morning we all sat at our desks and cried. No work got done for a week!
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It does not come naturally to me. I dread learning to use a new machine.
