Why Do Computers Still Seem NEWFANGLED?

[Kitiger]

I didn't grow up with computers. I didn't even take typing in high school - that was for people who wanted to be secretaries! My nursing school papers were done longhand.

The first home computers were so expensive that I didn't even look at them. (In the early 80s, $2,000 was a lot of money!) I clearly remember the first time a friend brought over his "Home PC". He hooked it up to our TV, as the TV screen then became the monitor. He showed me this astounding new feature. He could type a paragraph, and then go back and change a sentence WITHOUT RETYPING THE WHOLE PARAGRAPH! He said it was called "word processing". I was most impressed!

Fast forward: I now have a PC, a Notebook, and a cell phone. It's a somewhat smart phone. At least I can text without using the numbers to select letters.

I took a typing class at the university. Oops, I mean, I took a keyboarding class. I also took a computer class for beginners, and I learned a lot.

I'm fairly efficient at using the PC to do research, and to access my email and Facebook. I enjoy Facebook, although I'm told now that it is old-fashioned.

No, I haven't tried Twitter. Should I?

Even allnurses is new to me; the idea that I can go online and talk to nurses I don't even know. So strange. Yeah, I can do that on Facebook, too, but there I'm talking to my friends - to people that I already know - with strangers listening in. This is different.

Strange.

Delightful.

Newfangled.

[Kitiger, RN]

They lost me at Snapchat.

Uhhh ... Snapchat??

[stephatron289]

Uhhh ... Snapchat??

Snapchat is used in my house for exchanging adorable cat pictures without the fear of others using the pictures for nefarious deeds.

What constitutes a nefarious deed with an adorable cat picture is beyond me, but that's just how the app turned out to be used for me and my friends.

[djh123]

Yeah, re: all of these comments: I did have a slide rule class in high school. I was in college the first time WAY BACK in the previous century. :^) I was lucky, though because I took a typing class for the heck of it, and I ended up being a programmer, so that ended up being a fortuitious little chain of events.

Before slide rule or typing class, though, I used to chisel notes in rocks so my cave-room-mate Thag could read 'em when I went out to hunt Mastodon for dinner...

[Kitiger, RN]

Oh, you're much older than I am; I hunted Bison on the Great Plains!

[banterings]

I learned to program BASIC on a TI-99/4A in the early 1980s while in grade school. My mom bought one for the house for me and my brother. Floppy disk drives and the disks were expensive, so I used a cassette player/recorder to save text files.

In high school I learned BASIC and Pascal on an Apple IIc and FORTRAN on a mainframe that had been converted from punchcards to terminals.

As to the title of this post, "Why Do Computers Still Seem NEWFANGLED?” the answer is simple; technology is always changing. If you learn a program running on a certain operating system, eventually (usually by next week) it will be obsolete and updated.

Remember the Palm Pilots were the first PDAs, then came Blackberry and they combined the PDA with a cell phone. Cell phones have made the biggest impact on our technology. Cell phone chips are so powerful and so cheap, they are used in everything. (Note cell phone chips are different than computer [as in desktop or laptop] chips.) X-Box uses cell phone chips.

The entertainment center with back up camera in your car is just basically a cell phone built into your dash. Most run on Android and that is why you can install apps” like XM radio, Pandora, etc. Those computer kiosks in furniture stores (where you can see what are online only) are also cell phones running Android. iPads and Android tablets all use cell phone chips.

Much of technology is planned obsolescence.” Microsoft has been guilty of this for years (although recently they have backed off, giving Windows 10 away for free to anyone who has Windows 7 or later). Companies do this by discontinuing updates and support for older versions of both hardware and software. Since the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple has become more like Microsoft (use to be).

There was a big revolt with Windows XP where many businesses refused to give it up because it simply worked and worked well. MS used back the retirement date of Win XP in light of this uprising.

Finally, I like to read the the Beloit College Mindset List:

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall.

This post and the Beloit list reminded me of this FAIL:"

[Farawyn]

Palm Pilots!!!

Remember pagers?

[suseliz, MSN, RN]

"I didn't grow up with computers..."

No, I didn't either. I graduated with my BSN in 1975. I became an NP 20 years ago. I currently work exclusively from home doing online convenience care. What a hoot!

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

Uhhh ... Snapchat??

Indeed.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

We had a Commodore Vic-20. It took 30 minutes or more to boot up. You turned it on and then went and fixed dinner....

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

We had a Commodore Vic-20. It took 30 minutes or more to boot up. You turned it on and then went and fixed dinner....

I remember when our uncle sent us his old Commodore 64. That thing was a-m-a-z-i-n-g to me and my brother.

[Jensmom7, BSN, RN]

I used an abacus and followed the North Star.

One of my friends in college (mid 70s) actually did use an abacus. She was proficient enough to be able to correctly balance her checkbook with it.

I was muy impressed.

I wanted to take a typing class in high school. I knew I was going to college, and was going to have to write papers. Made sense to me.

Not to my school. The typing classes were for the kids in the secretarial program. I was in the "college prep" program, and typing wasn't deemed necessary. That's also the reason I couldn't take the auto shop class I wanted to. Back then, basic car care just wasn't something girls were supposed to be interested in.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

My mom (who spent her whole life as a secretary) famously told me NOT to learn to type, because if I did, I'd never get a job doing anything else.

I am the fastest two-finger, hunt-and-peck typist on the planet.