Parents are an odd bunch. My dad uses a computer to send and receive e-mail, plan trips and read up on the news. One of my friends dad’s uses the computer regularly, but his method of use is to open up Windows just so he can launch a command line interpreter. Considering I’m 45, we’re talking about people who are often considered grandparents, or even great grandparents.
If you look at the popular press, these people are supposed to be almost incapable of adapting to modern technology. Ever been to a department store with a signature capture register and seen the ballpoint ink signature on the screen? Supposedly it is these people doing that. (Personally I think it’s as much people my own age, and perhaps younger.) It’s a running gag in the computer press that these people don’t need a lot of computer capability. Just a way to send and receive e-mail to their kids, and peerhaps a web browser to surf the web, and hey since you can send and receive e-mail across a web interface, we can just use a web browser. Right?
If you’ve read enough of my blogs, you’ve probably encountered my mom before. We didn’t always get along. That happens though. That said, I think she did a pretty good job of raising some pretty bright kids. If I say so myself.
You will see many posts today about women who are exceptionally capable computer programmers. ThinkGeek is calling them ‘self saving princesses’ in honor of the number of them who are gamers as well.
My mom bought the first computer I used at home. A Timex Sinclair zx81. Membrane keyboard, basic interpreter, 16k memory module, tape interface to save and restore. And she had been working with it before I ever saw it. This was pretty much a computer that you had to program to use. It didn’t come with, or have a word processor. Spreadsheets were not generally available yet. And so on. And she was working on it, teaching herself computer programing in basic.
When my sister and I had flown the coop, and my brother was the only one home, my mom decided to start going to school again. She had taken some college courses long before, but had not completed her degree. So she started off doing that. Since she had been a reporter at one point in time, and had learned office skills on typewriters long before, she bought an AT&T wheel writer word processor/typewriter to write papers and such on. and along the way, she ran it out of memory. Several times.
After she completed her bachelors degree, she started a masters degree program at the University of Minnesota. And she shortly realized that a typewriter was not going to be sufficient to her needs for school. She was going to have to write in certain styles that were not conducive to being tracked well on a typewriter, and so on.
So she went out, spoke with a computer salesman, explained her needs, and took home a laptop computer. I won’t go into which brand, it really doesn’t matter. The laptop ran dos. She returned it the next day, went to the school bookstore and brought home a Macintosh SE.
And she used that computer. Got a memory upgrade for it and installed that herself. Upgraded the hard drive. I think it came with a 20 meg SCSI drive. She added an HP DeskJet printer to print with, and used that combination for the better part of a decade.
She never quite completed her masters degree. She had to take a semester off here and there. for which I feel pretty much responsible. And they changed the requirements as she was just about to finish. Along the way she progressed from the Mac SE, to an LC, and finally to one of the Teal iMacs. I may have been hardware support for her from time to time, but she did almost all of her own software support. I think she took her computer to the campus bookstore two or three times in total to have viruses cleaned off, and for the first OS upgrade she did.
She had online accounts with Compuserve, local ISPs and the university. Though I don’t believe she ever maintained a web page.
My mom was a remarkable woman in many ways. I miss her encouragement and criticism, the times she would help, and the times she would not. I don’t know how many times I’ve read editorials and blogs, watched tech shows, listened to podcasts or radio shows, and been left wondering “Who are these parents tho know so little of technology?” Those experiences are strange to me.
For me, a woman who can use a computer, who can program, or play video games, is not unusual or strange. I don’t think of her as a ‘self saving princess.’ If she is a ‘geek’ it is because she sees herself that way, not because I do. I see her as a reminder that there are always remarkable people doing remarkable things, some of them even aware that what they are doing is remarkable. But all of them doing the best they can. And all worthy of more attention than they get.
To you my mom, may all your dialup sessions have clean lines, and your memory remain incorruptible.
