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09/16/2010

Comments

Allen Hartman

You probably forgot to use the magical incantation for new operating systems. It involves waving a screwdriver over the screen and saying an incantation consisting entirely of four letter words. I share your frustration, recently it seems like every upgrade is better than the next.

ummabdulla

Yes, I studied computers (data processing) when we used decks of punched cards. The first PC I bought was from Radio Shack, and it had 48K! To do a small spreadsheet, I had to do half of it, write that to a floppy disk, then do the other half... no color or images or anything like that...

dobie76

My first computer was a VIC20. I was about six or seven when my father bought it for us. I remember putting a cassette tape into a detachable cassette deck and painstakingly typing all the BASIC code for the tank game printed in the manual. It was hours of work for minutes of fun.

Sophia Dembling

I am being beaten bloody by updates to iTunes. Make them stop!

And I still use Word 2002 because is already has more functions than I need and ever use. I will use it until they pry it out of my cold, bloody computer.

Lynn C

I'm teaching a freshman composition class built around the idea of technology and its (often invisible) impact on modern life. In the first week of the semester, I presented our first assignment, which was an autobiography microtheme on acquiring technological literacy. In the lecture, I showed my students a picture of the first computer I ever used: an Apple IIe.

They stared at it for a minute, and then one of them said wonderingly, "how did you click things?" Another asked, "how slow was the internet on THAT?" Ah, youth.

Chris

Our first computer was a Franklin Ace with 64K of memory (an Apple knock off -we're talking mid-80s here). You printed by actually hooking it up to a typewriter. (Remember those?) When we got our 286 machine with a 24-pin dot matrix printer we thought we had achieved technological nirvana, until we added a 96K baud modem.

Jonathon

So, Carol, what's the new operating system? Mac OS or Windows?

Carol Saller

Well, I didn't think it would be polite to say . . . but it's Windows 7. As I understand it, if I had an older browser, there would be fixes for some of the worst features, but unfortunately my browser is also up to the minute. --Carol

Julie VP

Hi there, So, I've got one good thing about your predicament: Your new headache was at least *given* to you. You didn't have to pay for it ... !

Susan Fine

oh yes i remember the paper clip in the hole! so funny. sometimes i do miss that first mac (1985), though.

Joelle

My first computer was a Commodore 64. I still have it and yeah it still works. But I think I'll stick with my laptop. lol

"the fix was an unbent paperclip poked into the “ejection” hole." lmao I remember this all too well.

Good Luck with the new system.

Steve

Every new operating system is an endlessly deepening nightmare. Windows7 has made my writing twice the work it used to be, and updates are consistently downgrades (as is W7). As for the Itunes victim: ditto. Their upgrades caused irreparable damage until a friend suggested the obvious: "always click 'no' to Itunes upgrades."

sylvia_rachel

My office just got Office 2010, but we're running it on WinXP, because our IT guys don't trust it. I went straight from Word 2000 (with ~10 years' worth of my own macros and customizations) to 2010, and yoicks! The IT guy who installed it included some kind of add-in that gives me an extra "ribbon" called "Menus", and this has been extremely helpful, since it (almost) replicates the 2000/2003 environment. I stay with that ribbon most of the time. I'm a bit slower than I was on 2000, but not as much as I feared.

Also, the Compare Docs feature is MUCH better and more useful than formerly.

The first computer I ever used was an Apple II in my elementary school's computer lab. (We were Early Adopters - we had a computer lab in 1983.) In high school, I used WP5.1 to do layout for the school newspaper. When I went away to university, I took with me a 1991 Toshiba 286 laptop, which weighed about 20 lb and had a tiny little monochrome screen...

Tcollinske

We were just talking about this minutes ago - updates! Tons of them constantly, phooey! Can't get my work done because everytime I open my computer...you must update blah blah blah.

And me too - I'd have to go to the office in the middle of the night to make sure the end of the month report was still running properly. Used that same paper clip too. Okay, so maybe things are better.

Came here looking for advice on my biggest weakness, writing passive sentences, ugh, and ended up on memory lane. Fun

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