Computers

I've blogged about my early experiences with computers before, but here's something else about computer history.

Today I looked up the word, computer, in my old dictionary that I used in college. (I still keep it because it tells about the history, not only the definitions of words.)

That edition of the dictionary was published in 1958 and the word, computer, wasn't even in it!

Wow! The world has certainly changed a lot since then.

I think it was in the 1960s that we began hearing about those things. The early ones were gigantic, about the size of refrigerators. And they only existed in a few science laboratories.

Rumors began spreading about those strange contraptions, which seemed like something out of science fiction. Like many people, I found the concept a little scary. There were even rumors that someday computers might take over the world!

Well, that's one prediction that has certainly come true.

Since I wasn't a scientist I didn't know exactly what those huge, early computers could do, but it was only the tiniest fraction of what even tiny cellphones can do today.

Of course my writerly imagination still wonders if they might someday be used for some sort of mind control or other world dominance.

But, in the meantime, it's hard to imagine what we would do without them. I'm certainly grateful for mine.

Computers!

When I was a kid there was a sexist saying: "Men!" (or "Women!") "Can't live with 'em and you can't live without 'em."

Now I say that about computers. They can drive us crazy when they don't function well, but we depend on them for lots of things.

Long ago computers were science fiction. Then real ones were invented, but they were the size of refrigerators and couldn't do anything like what tiny contraptions like i-phones can do today.

Back in the early 1970s I worked at the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley and people from the nearby Lawrence Hall of Science brought some  Tele-Typewriter Devices normally used for sending telegrams to our campus and connected them with their computer through phone cords. The idea was that Deaf people might be able to communicate at a distance that way. I was computer phobic and a bit scared to be one of the staff who first tried using the TDD, but also excited to get to do it. I outsmarted the program and soon had the computer typing gibberish so I got over my fear of them.

A few years later I took a computer class from a friend. It involved feeding tapes from a tape recorder through the computer and using a lot of html code, which I couldn't remember. I decided computers weren't for me.

But in the 1980s I got a Macintosh Computer that fit on my desk and found it easy to use. By then the tapes were consolidated into floppy discs. I got one of those discs, but doubted that I'd ever fill it up in my lifetime. Of course you know how inaccurate that was.

Now computers are everywhere and I use mine all the time even though it's difficult to keep adapting to the changes in software, etc. I consider myself a techno-idiot because I know lots of people who are far better than I am at technological stuff, but I keep on learning and can do things I wouldn't have imagined were possible a few decades ago.

And when something goes wrong, like what made me take my laptop in for repairs this week, it's obvious that doing without a computer is now a major problem.

Computers! Sometimes it's hard to live with 'em, but we sure can't live without 'em anymore.

More About Computers

Those of you who know me are aware that I'm a techno-idiot. Any new technological task is scary for me. Right now I'm frustrated because I recently upgraded my laptop and must adapt to lots of changes.

But when I consider how much more I know now than I did ten or even five years ago, I'm amazed! There are lots of people who haven't learned to do many things I now take for granted, such as participating in Facebook, blogging, setting up a webpage or even using e-mail.

Back in the 1980s when we got our first computer I was sure I'd never have enough material in it to fill an entire floppy disc. Boy, was I ever wrong!

But computers can have all sorts of problems that aren't easy to deal with. Sometimes we must spend hours on the phone with tech support or spend a lot of money for something needed to make them work. (The computers, not the tech support people.)

Sometimes we can't live with 'em, but in this day and age it would sure be hard to live without 'em. And that sentence could refer to either or both of the above. ;-)

Computers

Way back in the early 1970s while I was working at the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley somebody at the nearby Lawrence Hall of Science got a brilliant idea. Maybe deaf people could communicate with each other at a distance by sending computer signals as if they were telegrams.

They ran some phone lines over the hill to our campus and connected them to several teletypewriters or TTYs. Those devices were about five feet square and two feet deep and had keyboards.

It worked! They could actually access material on the computer at their lab.

Computers were scary, but we were required to attend training and learn to use that technology before it became available for the students.

I sat in front of the contraption and tried a program called "Dorothea" after a famous psychologist named Dorothea Dix. The program was supposed to help students cope with emotional problems by encouraging them to share their feelings.

I'd had college classes in psychology and knew the non-directive phrases like "How do you feel about that?" so I typed some of them in as responses to prompts and within a few minutes the computer had become confused and was sending me gibberish.

Whew! A computer wasn't smart enough to do those scary sci-fi things we'd heard about after all.

Of course today computers can do things we could only have imagined back then and they're part of our every day lives. I'm proud to have been involved in one of the very first internet communications.

Connecting

For several days last week I had no telephone or internet connection. That was frustrating and I felt extremely relieved when both were finally fixed. That experience made me appreciate our modern communication systems and think of what life must have been like for our ancestors.

Generations ago if someone travelled from Europe or Asia to America or across the continent if their families ever heard from them at all it would have taken months for handwritten letters to arrive and more months for the replies to be returned.

Since many people couldn't read and write they would have had to get someone else to do that for them and might have had to pay for the service. The postage alone would have cost a lot if available, and often the letters would have been carried by someone who happened to be traveling in the right direction and might not ever arrive.

Pony Express and the transcontinental railroad made contact much easier, but it was still often a matter of weeks or months. The telegraph was fast, but only went from station to station and was also expensive.

Even in the 1940s it normally took two weeks for letters to be carried across the United Stated, though a stamp only cost three cents. Air mail was faster, but cost twice as much. Telephones had been invented, but not everyone had them and long distance rates were expensive.

Although computer and internet problems can drive us crazy, we're lucky to be able to communicate quickly with people in most parts of the world and I'm thankful my internet service is working again.

Computers!

Computers! We can't live with them and we can't live without them!

All my e-mail accounts were down for about 24 hours. At least the automated message from tech support told me what to do so I didn't have to wait on hold for ages. But when the messages did arrive they all went to the junk mail file. Guess now I'll need to reset and retrain that.

But every time I start to complain about this kind of problem I remember how things were in past centuries when it took months to get letters, if they arrived at all. People who came to America from other continents might never again have heard from the people they left behind. Even half a century ago letters often took two weeks to arrive, and phone calls only worked if the other person happened to be available. Even answering machines didn't exist.

Okay, even with the nuisance of occasional tech problems, internet access is much more a blessing than a curse.