Uh-huh. This is from a woman who felt like her left arm was cut off for the past week as her Mac was admitted for a check-up.
Back to 1986 and the classroom, completely set up with giant monitors with small screens, printers with paper with the little holes on either side, and a tangle of cords and cables running from each. A fad I tell you, a fad. Who would seriously want to deal with all of this tangled confusion? And that isn't even mentioning the part that was even more confusing: turning the beast on and getting it to do something.
Back then, I believe the operation system was DOS ("Disk Operating System" in case you always wondered because that makes it all so much easier to understand). From what I remember, which isn't much because I didn't really pay close attention (it was a fad, remember?), you had to type in a command to get a result. To me, it seemed rather like a Dumb Operating System because it took longer to type in the command to tell it to put my name on the paper than it would have taken to just write my name on the paper.
The project Jencene and I chose to undertake that semester was to play a song using the keypad as our notes. You know, A was Do, S became Re, and D became Me and so on and so forth. Look out Sound of Music. I believe the song we were going to attempt was Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee.
After much laborious work, hours even, we were able to produce the first few stanzas of the song, in
2-part harmony no less. This took two computers and we had to synchronize our pushing of the first key so the melodious, tinny sound would be produced in harmonious glory. Laborious, harmonious, melodious, glorious. Was that tears I saw the teacher wiping from his eyes?
So much work. So much effort. And to think, down in the music room was a piano of the old-fashioned variety that could've have produced 4-part harmony in seconds and not only played the first few stanzas, but the entire song. Amazing.
My other memory of this class? The printer, the very loud printer that when sent a command to "print" would begin making a whirring, scratching whine as it laid down the words onto paper. Not just any paper mind you, but paper made to fit the printer exactly, lined up with the holes that fit into the printer just so. Heaven forbid you should have it off-line. Once, I sent a command to print, by accident, and it began to print in it's loud, obnoxious way, announcing to that entire wing of the high school that someone was printing. Remember that it was "by accident" that I was printing? Well, not only did it print one copy, but multiple, multiple copies, and I couldn't make it stop.
I didn't know the command.
Pull the plug? Too scary. There were lots of cords and cables; if I pulled the wrong one...disaster.
Not that it would have mattered; it was only a fad after all.
Right?
Love,
Dianne
PS: My Mac is back and she is okay!!
So much work. So much effort. And to think, down in the music room was a piano of the old-fashioned variety that could've have produced 4-part harmony in seconds and not only played the first few stanzas, but the entire song. Amazing.
My other memory of this class? The printer, the very loud printer that when sent a command to "print" would begin making a whirring, scratching whine as it laid down the words onto paper. Not just any paper mind you, but paper made to fit the printer exactly, lined up with the holes that fit into the printer just so. Heaven forbid you should have it off-line. Once, I sent a command to print, by accident, and it began to print in it's loud, obnoxious way, announcing to that entire wing of the high school that someone was printing. Remember that it was "by accident" that I was printing? Well, not only did it print one copy, but multiple, multiple copies, and I couldn't make it stop.
I didn't know the command.
Pull the plug? Too scary. There were lots of cords and cables; if I pulled the wrong one...disaster.
Not that it would have mattered; it was only a fad after all.
Right?
Love,
Dianne
PS: My Mac is back and she is okay!!
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