Hi Everyone,
Or, Bernie, Dale, John T, Pete, and everyone else on this
thread: I have really enjoyed your posts :)
I'm really enjoying this discussion (DOS GUI) and [uh-oh! <g>]
it's got me thinking...
I've been thinking back on all the things I have learned in my
42 years; how to drive, cook, knit, crochet, and spin - fly a
kite, pitch a tent, change the oil in my car, how to shop to get
the best price, what herb is the best to use for a particular
ailment, balance my checkbook, operate a pad-printing machine,
change a diaper, etc, etc, and etc. None of these things was
"easy to learn," yet I learned them all, and in every case it
was more than worth it. (Well, except maybe the diapers...)
In light of this I'd be interested to know what you all think...
Where did the idea that computers should be "easy" come from in
the first place? Where did the idea that Win3.xx or Win9x is
"easy to learn" come from? Isn't all learning the same to
begin with, including computers? Whether you decide to learn
Chinese cooking or computers (Win9x or DOS), aren't you facing
the unknown in both cases, or at least something unknown to you?
Isn't that the very nature of learning itself? Isn't the real
task bringing the "unknown" into the "known"?
Also, in all cases I mentioned in the first paragraph, first I
learned a few basics, then progressed on to the more complicated
and "fine-tuning" aspects. Isn't this how most things, including
DOS are learned? No one can be an expert on *anything*
(including Win9x) in 15 minutes or even a couple weeks.
Something else I wanted to say... Circa 1987: When I learned
DOS (2.11) it really was, for all intents and purposes, all
there was. I knew many people in the local computer community
and out of all those people (hundreds through the BBS's, less
"in person" of course) not a single one used an Apple. There
was one who had a Commador 64. A few had PS2's. Everyone else
had clones running M$-DOS or IBM PC-DOS, and if there were
"alternative DOS's", no one was talking about them, or using
them. Of course this was before the InterNet became mainstream,
but I would think even back then alternative DOS's would have
been discussed in the BBS's. So I'm willing to cut the newbies
some slack, in spite of M$ ad campaigns and because of the
InterNet, they do have more choices for an OS, and the
information about other OS's is freely available on the Net.
On "languages": Think about it, almost everything has it's
own specialized language, and if you want to learn it, you
gotta' learn the lingo. Medicine has it's specalized language,
so does law, and music, and chemistry, and crochet, and
even religion. Much of learning these things is learning the
language of these things. Why would it be any different with
computers (OS's)?
I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple is somehow responsible
for all this - it couldn't be IBM after all! <grin>
Boanne
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FROM: Over the hills and far away...
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A Dinosaurs Garden (collection of DOS links and files)
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