Did you know that Windows 1.01 was released on November 20, 1985? So there is no excuse why, in 1995, I didn’t know Word existed.
Returning to University as a mature age student, I strode confidently into the library, familiar with what tertiary study was all about… looking for the library catalogue… looking for the filing cabinet full of paper cards with the book details typed on them, yes, typed on them with a typewriter. Instead, there were only a lot of little televisions. Other people were looking at the details of books on these screens. “Oh, the catalogue is on these screens. I can see it there.” I sat at a blank screen, and discovered that there were many, many key combinations that did not result in anything like instructions appearing as to how to work the catalogue. Eventually someone spoke to me, as you might to someone seriously brain impaired, “Hit this key twice.”
“Oh yeah, that’s simple isn’t it, smartarse,” I thought on my way to the desk to get a set of instructions.
Later in semester, I went to the printing centre to print out my assignment which of course I’d written in DOS, as I’d suffered long teaching myself how to work in DOS. When I’d asked my young friends about DOS, they’d thought I was some sort of uber techno-geek interested in archaic IT. However, now I noticed a page on someone’s screen for the first time that looked a lot better than mine… “It looks like a page that a typewriter makes,” thought I. So it was quite reasonable to exclaim, in a tone reminiscent of someone seeing a space alien, “What is THAT?”…
“What do you mean?” said my fellow student as if I really needed medication. I repeated, “On the screen, what’s that?”
“It’s my assignment. Do you think it looks bad?”
“No, I mean how are you doing that? How are you typing that?
“It’s Word,” was the infuriatingly simple reply. “Yes, don’t patronise me: it’s many words,” but before I could open my mouth, the student recognised the look on my face for the complete ignorance it represented… “It’s a computer program that does this.”
“Wow,” says I. “Where can I get it?”
“Um, just on every computer on campus… on every computer around.”
So my life was transformed. Oh well, I helped others with their Anatomy and Physiology and they explained computer applications to me… win win.
Now when I teach my 82 year old Mother how to use Word 2010 and how to play minesweeper, I do so with a certain humility, understanding that she is not stupid and NO software is intuitive.