I was twenty in 1957 when Univac donated a more-or-less obsolete Univac 1 to Penn. I was working in a lab and the operator (and mainly repairman) for a rather large analog computer that was programmed using long cables. But then the lab hired a couple of people to program the Univac to solve the enzyme reaction equations that my computer was doing. I got sort of interested and learned just a bit about digital programming.
Fast forward 20 years and my department bought a Wang minicomputer that used BASIC as its OS. I learned a bit about it and wrote a few programs, nothing serious. Five years later I was cowriting a book with someone in Cleveland and mail was taking 2 weeks minimum. My coauthor had bought an Apple ][ and wondered if we could somehow communicate using his computer and a McGill computer. Then a colleague went on sabbatical and lent me a TTY machine and an acoustic modem. With the help of our computer centre we were able to exchange files and print them at our respective computer center/res. Then I had to give back the TTY so I finally bought one of those brand new IBM PCs with IBM-DOS that didn’t even have a version number, but was later called 1.0. I was 45 at the time and taught myself from then on.
Same same, that gave me the basics (pun intended). Then, later on I worked in a bank financial analyst operation where we were masters of paper spreadsheets and 10-key. We were early adopters of IBM PCs (no hard drive) and Lotus 1-2-3. Maybe from my earlier education, I found that I had a real knack for the PC and Lotus. The rest is history!
As for the OP and youngsters not being computer literate, I see that with my family. Everyone assumes that kids just “get” computers. But more and more they are just using applications, so they don’t necessarily know any more than that about computers. Of course, they all know some kid at school who can hack into Bank of America (if they really wanted to) so they rely on that person for taking care of them if they have a need.
I’m 63. The library where I was working in the 1980s got a computer and sent me to classes to learn how to use it. It wasn’t long after that I got a home computer and taught myself as much as I could.
I’m 59 now. Back in 1996 I got promoted from working out in the shop to an office job in purchasing. We had some kind of computer that was not connected to the internet and the software was “Copyright 1980”. I learned how to use it pretty fast by trial and error and from co-workers. Then one day they brought in PCs for everyone, hooked them up and said “OK, there’s your computer, start computin’.” I was learning that the same way as the old computer and at about the same time my parents bought a PC, showed me how to use the internet and I bought my own almost immediately. Would have been around 1997 by then.
Probably. I was a tyke in the early 1980s. If I saw a computer that decade there’s no way I would remember it. However the knowledge of using the (easy) GUI on a Macintosh has stuck with me. It’s only smartphones that have really changed the UI. To keep up, all I needed to do was update Windows every five to ten years and explore the computer. (For instance, Windows 7 has libraries that don’t perfectly match to the directories I was familiar with… so I’ve taken the directories I needed direct access to and made them shortcuts on my desktop. I don’t think this makes me some kind of “power-user”.)
Yes. If you can search something on Google and watch a video on Netflix on a smartphone that would match “my” definition of “computer-literate”.
I’m not expecting someone using a computer to know how to program a computer, much like I wouldn’t expect a car driver to know how to build or repair a car. (Such knowledge is helpful, of course, and I would hope they would at least know when a car needs maintenance.)
These customers don’t save their usernames to the computer (so they tell me they can’t use the system since they forgot their username), and would rather rely on the far-less reliable mailing system to get information to us.
I wondered if the way I had learned to use a computer was unusual, giving me an advantage compared to them (while leaving me unable to see how they were disadvantaged). The schooling I got wasn’t really better, it seems, but having a (cruddy) computer without an internet connection as a teenager apparently did give me an advantage, since I was able to teach myself some basics. I had a hard time believing people younger than me had fewer opportunities with a computer at school, but it seems nearly everyone learned their skills at home, so more modern schooling isn’t giving them much of an advantage.
I’m 40, and I learned how to use a computer at home when I was 6. The summer between when I was in kindergarten and first grade my mom decided that having a six-year-old and a newborn (just born in mid-June!) wasn’t enough of a challenge for her, so she went back to school. She wanted to get a degree in computer science, so she had to have a computer… therefore we got our first, also a Commodore VIC-20, because it met the minimum standards for her beginning coursework. She taught me how to use it in general over the course of the summer, and also how to program rudimentary things in Basic.
Interestingly, even though I started school in the 80s, I don’t think I ever saw a computer at school, let alone used one there, until we moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire in 1987. I guess none of the three elementary schools I’d gone to before then, all in Lawrence, had the money for things like computers.
59, first experience was in H.S. in 1973 learning how to write programs in FORTRAN, doing the keypunching, mailing the keypunch cards off to the computer at the U. of Chicago to be run, and see how my program worked out.
I’m 56. I first used a computer (a Wang with a green screen and the 8 inch floppy discs) to run a genetics simulation for a class in college, about '82. In '84 I learned to use an Apple with two 5.25" floppies to run a grading program, and something called Bank Street Writer to compose tests for high school biology classes. I used that computer until '93 when I changed jobs. I had to teach myself how to use Microsoft Word then. I also figured out how to use the internet. I got paid to take a two-week summer course about 2000 to learn how to email attachments and other things, how to use other MS Office features, and set up a website (which I have never done, so it was promptly forgotten). The school district also started using a nifty grade book system and substitute teacher system, which was great.
I’m retired, so I generally use my computer now to surf the internet, email occasionally, pay bills, and print out stuff if I have the need.
I was in Kindergarten in 1983. We had “library” as a class and I remember the librarian teaching us how to use computers to play games on floppy disks (the ones that were actually floppy).
In 6th grade -89/90 “keyboarding” was a mandatory “elective” along with shop, home ec, and other stuff. It was mostly typing, but we used computers. So you had to at least know a few things about using them. In 8th grade I first remember going “online” and using email.
In high school there were many classes that required using computers from time to time for research and writing papers. By the first time I went to college in the mid 90s, my mom had bought a computer - we never had much money so it was a huge deal when a basic one was around $3000, but I wouldn’t have my own for a few years. Still, at school the use of computers at the libraries was expected.
Spitting distance of 53 and my parents sprung for a Commodore PET 4016 in '82. Taught myself BASIC and 6502 Assembler on it. First by just reading the code of the programs I had and then with the help of Compute! magazines.
No, and I didn’t say he was illiterate. I was agreeing with your statement that “computer literacy” can be rather compartmentalized.
Same friend once had me come by because his Windows PC was running terribly and I did all the usual malware checks (loaded with it), defrag, etc. Said “Shouldn’t you be doing this?” and he said “I have no idea how to do that stuff”. Again, I don’t know if routine system maintenance counts as “literacy” but it was out of his sphere.
All that said, the bar for “computer literacy” seems to be pretty low if we’re happy with knowing how to access your email and watch cat videos on YouTube. In terms of “literacy”, that feels like mastering a Dick & Jane primer and calling yourself literate. I don’t have a solid definition for “literacy” off the cuff but I would expect a proclaimed computer literate person to have a grasp on navigating through the OS’s basic setup options, file libraries, navigating basic standard program functions (File, View, Tools, etc), setting up peripherals and connecting to a network, basic troubleshooting and at least a rudimentary understanding of the hardware (no “I need more memory for Windows? But I have a 2TB hard drive!”). That’s a far higher bar than the OP sets though.
Had I taken my college Comp Sci class in 1984 instead of 1985, I would have been programming on punch cards; the school scrapped their punchcard system the year before I took the class.
Same here. I just missed using Punch cards by 2 years.
Older students told stories of long lines waiting in the lab to get their cards run.
I was very lucky to use a Vax VMS. The lab was quite modern for 1986. VT220 terminals. We had a full screen editor, EDT. Interactive Compilers and Linkers. You ran your DCL at the command prompt. No batch job submissions like students on older mainframes.
Our lab even had several DEC Rainbow PC’s. A odd PC that ran DOS or CPM depending on how it was booted. Had built-in VT100 terminal hardware emulation to connect to the Vax. Most of the Rainbows in the lab were used as terminals.
One of my classes used DBase II for several projects. That was done on the Rainbows.
My dad sold computers in the 70s before I was even born. Computers were always around our house in some form or another. Instructions were never formal, rarely even “here’s how you get it to do x.” I just kind of absorbed it.
We kids had a Commodore 64 that we mostly figured out on our own,8,1. The family computer ranged from some DOS thing with an orange on black screen to 286/386/486 running pre- and post-Windows 3.1. At school, starting in junior high, I used Apple machines, including LAN type stuff.
I learned to type on an electric typewriter first before using word processors (starting without wysiwyg). Spreadsheets was through osmosis and some later help on Excel from my dad. In college I learned some complicated visual graphics programs in dedicated classes.
When I was a kid my dad let me use his computer to play games and use what I guess would be called interactive “edu-tainment” CD-ROMs about dinosaurs, space, and biology.
I was probably the last generation where kids regularly turned in school papers written on typewriters. I can’t remember when the schools installed computer labs, maybe fourth or fifth grade. They taught kids how to type and use word processors and spreadsheets but I mostly just remember everyone playing Oregon Trail or drawing horrible pictures in Paint. Later on in middle and high school they taught us how to use the internet and find proper sources.
I also went to the public library a lot as a kid and used the computers to search for books, which was handy since it would search other libraries in the system too. Must’ve been a pain in the past since you’d have to visit every library, or call them all one by one I guess.
My first computer all to my own was a Pentium 90, good enough to play the original StarCraft.