By Jim Hagarty
2007
Have I mentioned that nothing in life is simple any more?
When I got my first typewriter in 1969, a machine I still own and which is a hit with my kids, I took it out of the box, set it down on the table and started typewriting. Words appeared instantly on paper. There was no printer to hook up to. The typewriter was the printer. There was no word-processing program to learn. Ten fingers, a bunch of keys, and away we go. About as word perfect as you could get.
But times change. And you know what? I was never so glad when the day came that I could put that stupid typewriter away for good. Being a manual machine, it was a pain in many, many ways and one particular part of the anatomy. Only later, as a reporter at The Beacon Herald daily newspaper in my hometown Stratford, was I introduced to the marvels of the IBM Selectrix, which was the Rolls Royce of electric typewriters. If you breathed too heavily on a key, it slammed the paper. Goodbye calloused fingers.
Even better, at my first newspaper, The Mitchell Advocate, a smalltown weekly, was a huge “Compugraphic” computer with a little black screen the size of an oversized cigarette pack. The letters glowed green, the screen was pitch black. It was love at first sight.
And now, computers rule and I love everything about them. They get simpler all the time and can accomplish amazing tasks. I wonder if those too young to remember when there were no computers, no Internet and no email can fully appreciate the amazing abilities of these little wired boxes.
And I know only a little of what they can actually do. However, computers can also drive a man crazy nuts when they won’t do what they’re supposed to do and when the world seems helpless to save him.
This week I bought an Internet router. Brought it home and hooked it up to the two computers that sit side-by-side in our kitchen. Its light flickered prettily on, but it performed nothing of what was promised on the box. Helpfully, however, there was the 24/7 support line which I immediately called. I feel very sorry for the woman I reached and I’m pretty sure she feels sorry for herself now too.
We faced three big problems. I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t understand her. And I couldn’t follow any of her instructions. Somehow, despite all this, we got Computer A up and running. Computer B was a different story. She earned her paycheque and I earned a few more grey hairs but still no Internet.
She gave me a reference number, told me to call back sometime and hung up. Ran from the building, I am sure. So, I phoned back. Got some poor young man who now wishes he had gotten into veterinary science or hairdressing instead of computers.
He tried. He really did. But finally told me to phone my computer company.
I tried my Internet provider. The woman there was sympathetic, but perplexed. But as I was speaking to her, I saw something fishy. An unplugged USB cord.
You know, computers aren’t that complicated alter all! Technological idiots? Very complex creatures. No connections to plug in. Impervious to helplines.
Almost word imperfect.
