ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MAGAZINE/MISC/MNMAR19.ZIP/PCLIKE

Text File | 1991-02-18 | 5.8 KB | 144 lines

                 SO WHAT'S THIS FASCINATION WITH COMPUTERS?
                                by Sidney Simon



I learned to fly an airplanes at one time in my life.  With a certain flair,
I did landings and take-offs not necessarily in that order, and I came to
know enough navigation to be able to do cross-county flying.  I could stall
and recover, I could fly "under the hood" and not see where I was going (or
coming) and just with instruments, survive.  Once I even did what they call a
dead-stick landing.  Those are useful if your engine dies.  You dead-stick it
or you die.

All of this is told to you not to make me seem impressive but to help raise
the question: so what's this fascination with computers?






Because, you see, I could take flying or leave it.  Actually, I left it.
Because, to me, flying was boring.  There was a lot to learn of course, but
learning it was somehow dull for me.  And from day one, computers have never
been dull and I can't see anywhere in the future where they will become dull.
Learning about computers has been totally engrossing.  I would have not
predicted that.

You sit in front of a glowing ersatz television screen, choosing to push your
fingers around a tool, finding yourself alternately frustrated, tortured,
filled with despair and occasionally tasting disaster.  This is fun?

Yes, it is.  Among the grandest fun I have known.  And I had my share of fun,
even if I have only played one computer game in my life.  The fun is the
learning.

Learning interests me.  I have been a teacher all my life and after some
thirty-seven years practicing, I am finally getting the hang of it.  During
all those years, I have struggled to intrigue, excite, even enthrall my
students with the magic of the content, the wonder of the theories and the
allure of the acquisition of learning.







My XT clone enthralled, intrigued, excited and captured me in a week.
Without much charm or grace, it thoroughly enamored me and has made me a
continued computer addict.

I am almost embarrassed to say no other learning I have ever done has been so
completely engulfing.  Certainly not learning Spanish, nor calculus, not even
Piaget's developmental stages.  And worse, I can't seem to figure out what
this all-devouring appeal for the computer is about. Have you figured it out?
Has your wife waiting for you to come to bed figured it out?  Have your
children, when at a time of crisis, they have to wait for you to solve a
problem (like how to get your printer to print in compressed mode) figured it
out?  Has anyone figured it out?

Well, here are a few things I have identified as part of what has fascinated,
mesmerized and occasionally enslaved me to that thing called computer.







                    THE APPEAL OF INSTANT GRATIFICATION

In computers, if you get it right, the computer gives you a precious gift by
instantly rewarding you with the right answer.  In a world which is
increasing bewildering, where politics confuse us, where the media uses us,
where relationships are storm-tossed and careers unpredictably chaotic, what
a comfort it is knowing $p$g will bring up a prompt that you can believe in
and that $p$g will do it every time.  Carefully you weigh the alternatives,
make a decision and results magically appear, the printer dances and
gratification abides in your heart, instantly.  So it is with everything
about computers.  If you get it right, the gratification will be instant.
The first time you make a directory, for example (MD \SALVATION) and it
works, even if it comes out \SALVATIO, it's instant gratification.  Do you
remember that thrill?

Do you remember typing something single spaced and then wanting the whole
document to be double-spaced?  When you hit the right keys the whole thing,
instantly, was double-spaced. What greater moments of instant gratification
can there be than that?





                    THE DEPENDABILITY OF PREDICTABILITY

That's the second thing I get from computers - predictability.  Instant
gratification is nice and sometimes over-poweringly nice, but it is when the
instant gratification is dependably predictable that computers begin to be
addictive.  It is comforting because it is predictable. At this level of my
computerhood, I can insert something into my AUTOEXEC.BAT and know that if I
did it right, what I inserted will produce a predictable result.  So, instant
gratification and predictability are two factors with which the computer has
me hypnotized.

                         THE ELEGANCE OF THE SOLUTION

I know I must be simple-minded, but  after almost fifty years on a
typewriter, I was dazzled and remain dazzled by how the little letters can be
juggled on a computer.  And it is always with such elegance.  Anyone who
writes knows what I mean. You arrogantly insert an adjective and watch the
little letters jump ahead of it in perfect order, never losing a space or a
comma -- that's elegance.






                  YOU WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF THINGS TO LEARN

Finally, there is one last fascination, nay, mesmerization with this thing
called computer.   I don't know if that is what fascinates you, but it is
clearly one of the most enthralling things for me. Flying had some of that
and so did Spanish, but nothing like the opportunities to learn that a
computer user is provided.

Can you imagine ever running out of something to learn or try with a
computer?

So what is the appeal of the computer for you?  Are you captivated by the
thrill of the instant gratification? Is it the predictability in an otherwise
unpredictable world that fascinates you? Is it the elegance of solution that
charms you?  Or is it the fact that you will never run out of things to
learn?

Reprinted Courtesy of Buffalo IBM PCUG - MICRONEWS