Tag: Computers

Computer illiteracy

April 6, 2025

The picture was ancient. Two nice-looking girls were sitting at manual typewriters in a school room. You knew it was old because it was black & white, and their clothes were vintage. My comment to the question on Facebook, “Do you remember this?” was, “Yes, I am the guy behind the two girls.” Slightly out of focus, a young man with horn-rimmed glasses and a white shirt was in the background. He was your typical nerd from the fifties and sixties. You couldn’t see his pocket protector, but I’m sure it was there.

My keyboarding career started that way. Typing class in high school. A few guys. Mostly girls were getting a head start on their stimulating careers in the secretarial field. Today, I am using a laptop to write. That class at Hillcrest is not typing but keyboarding, and it will soon die because no one gets to high school without being able to use a keyboard. Most get that education in kindergarten.

Computers first came to my attention in grade school. It was the Univac that I saw in magazines and books. Then there was the IBM monstrosity that NASA used to compute trajectories for the Mercury missions. I never knew what a computer really was until I saw “Secret Treasures”. Who knew that people used to be called computers? We just called them smart kids.

Our first computer keyboard was on a Texas Instruments device that was smaller than my first AM radio. Then came the Commodore, the Atari, and the 86-format machine. That was the first with minor connectivity and its own monitor. The rest plugged into the TV like your first video game. My first video game was brother Bud’s Pong.

My first purchasing position came with a brush with computing. The owner of the company had been looking into computerizing accounting, purchasing, and inventory control. For six months, I was tasked with designing and assigning unique part numbers for each of our products. I spent many extra hours and was not present when the machines were put into operation.

My second shot at a business in purchasing was again before that location had computers. The corporation had computers at both major warehouses. I was intrigued that their part number system was like the one I previously designed. When we had terminals installed at our branch, I enjoyed the time savings that the system brought.

I was also glad to see the inventory card system be moved out as well as the billing machine. Inventory, billing, and purchasing were done on the terminals. It was several years later before I had a personal computer on my desk at work.

Where does computer illiteracy come into? I am a baby boomer. I’ve never had problems with any electrical or electronic gadget. Currently, artificial intelligence seems to be the problem area. I’ve worked with AI since I used my first digital calculator.

Mechanical calculators used gears, cams, and other mechanical devices to make sums, multiply, divide, and subtract. If you have never seen one, go to an engineering museum. Science fiction writers have predicted that computers and robots would take over our world.

In the late 1990s, some thought that life as we knew it would end on January 1st of 2000. Computer chips originally could not go beyond 1999. Programmers got with the plan, and we were ready on December 31. Now we need to figure out how to do things on paper again. We may never experience an EMP event that is currently being predicted, but just in case, keep pencil and paper handy.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Eight Decades

March 2, 2024

I’ve experienced a great deal from the time I was born in the 1950s until now in the third decade of the twenty-first century. I have not lived seventy years, but I have experienced some or all of eight decades.

My first recollections were of the race for the President that ended in November of 1960 with the election of John Kennedy. My Dad was a Teamster. This meant he and Mom always voted for the Democratic candidate. I did not understand why they did that, but I was just a kid.

Dad was a Baptist and did not want to vote for a Catholic. On more than one occasion I heard him discuss with other adults the guns and explosives that they kept in their basements to use to overthrow the government. The only other group they seemed to hate more was the blacks. That wasn’t the word they used.

In the 1960’s I watched the Mercury astronauts fly into space and circle the Earth. Later the Gemini program tested technics and technologies that would be needed during the Apollo program that took men to the moon in 1969 and into the 1970’s. A total of twelve men walked and drove on the moon. Did you know that one man took a golf club and ball to the moon and made the first drive not on the surface of the Earth?

Many new devices were developed in that decade. Microwave ovens, wireless home phones, and computers for businesses came into use. Manufacturing and technology were stepping up all around the country. Television moved into the future with cable companies spreading throughout the country.

In junior high, I discovered the world of science fiction. Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clark were the first authors that I read. The first sci-fi movie I saw was “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” It premiered in the late 1950s and is still considered one of the finest motion pictures of its kind.

The next two decades saw many low-budget films produced but the genre took a giant leap forward with the original Star Trek TV series and the first Star Wars movie. Special effects technologies continued with George Lucas and his vision. And we need to talk about graphic novels. When I started reading them, they were called comics. Everything from Spiderman, Batman, and Classics Illustrated were being published. These were much better than the Mickey Mouse and child-type magazines.

I have watched computers progress from the Univac and the IBM machine that NASA used to calculate the trajectories of all the space vehicles. The 1980s brought personal computers and cell phones into our homes. Smartphones came around in the next decade.

Those two decades saw the way we watched movies and television change drastically. Satellite systems, video cassette recorders, and compact discs for audio music became popular even though they are mostly obsolete now. The DVR and streaming services came on the scene. The internet was needed for all this new technology.

Our new millennium and century began with a possible panic that never materialized in the computer and technology areas. In my lifetime I have watched black and white, color, cable, satellite, and high-definition programming come into my home. Now I walk around with a computer more powerful than the one that got us to the moon in my shirt pocket.

I haven’t even talked about robots, artificial intelligence, and many other advances. I mentioned reading earlier. I have carried a book with me from the time I learned to read and now have over two thousand on my phone that I can read in print or audio versions. I even have comics on my phone. What a difference a decade makes.

©Copyright 2024 by Charles Kensinger

Computer illiteracy

January 18, 2023

The picture was ancient. Two nice-looking girls were sitting at manual typewriters in a school room. You knew it was old because it was black & white, and their clothes were vintage. My comment to the question on Facebook “Do you remember this?” was “Yes, I am the guy behind the two girls.” Slightly out of focus and in the background was a young man with horn rim glasses and a white shirt. He was your typical nerd from the fifties and sixties. You couldn’t see his pocket protector, but I’m sure it was there.

My keyboarding career started that way. Typing class in high school. A few guys. Mostly girls getting a head start on their stimulating careers in the secretarial field. Today, I am using a laptop to write. That class at Hillcrest is not typing now but keyboarding and it will soon die because no one gets to high school without being able to use a keyboard. Most get that education in kindergarten.

Computers first came to my attention in grade school. It was the Univac that I saw in magazines and books. Then there was the IBM monstrosity that NASA used to compute trajectories for the Mercury missions. I never knew what a computer really was until I saw Secret Treasures. Who knew that people used to be called computers? We just called them smart kids.

Our first computer keyboard was on a Texas Instrument device smaller than my first AM radio. Then came the Commodore, the Atari, and the 86-format machine. That was the first with minor connectivity and its own monitor. The rest is plugged into the TV like your first video game. My first video game was brother Bud’s Pong.

I’ve run DOS and Windows 3 and up.  I have not upgraded to eleven yet, but I am sure it will happen. I have wanted to be computer literate since I was in the third grade. I used my daughters as an excuse to get our first desktop machine. I still have floppy disks with my writing files on them. I should go back and look at some of those columns and stories.

Before COVID-19 shut down I took a class at OTC to learn about Windows Office. I learned about Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and other programs that I have used for years. The difference now is I know how to use many functions that I had not mastered before.

Between video, audio, and word processing software, I feel I currently have mastery of the computer I need. What will come is a mystery to me. This is as true as it was in 1960.

©Copyright 2023 by Charles Kensinger