Computer intelligence or a lack thereof

By DAVID KITTREDGE
RENAISSANCE REDNECK
In the very early 1990s I decided to buy my first computer. I was given the advice to purchase it by a fellow who was selling computers from his home on Park Street in Claremont, because he would also teach me how to run it. I had no computer science training in school, so I thought this would be a good avenue for me to follow. 

During my two or three visits to his house I peppered the poor man with so many questions that his eyes began to glaze over. I apologized to him and explained that purchasing a computer was a very big step for me because prior to this I was writing on rocks. This was true because while working on a construction site one day I needed to jot down a list of materials I had to purchase and I could not find a piece of paper or even a block of wood to write on so I wrote my list on a brick. As I said, I was writing on rocks. 

He was thankful I bought a computer and he was very thankful to see me leave. As I was driving away with my new purchase he waved and gave me a weak smile and was probably thinking “Come back when you can’t stay so long.” I have managed to glaze the eyes of many computer and smart phone salespersons throughout the years since. I have even noticed them roll their eyes at me as I approached them if I had dealings with them previously. It is nice to be recognized.

In 1988 a lady with whom I was involved decided she needed a computer and I went with her to shop for an Apple computer. It was the first time I had been involved with a computer purchase and the experience was as familiar to me as walking on the planet Mars. The salesperson bombarded us with a mountainous volume of unknown nomenclature. My eyes were glazed over from the massive input of new terms such as mouse, icon, boot up, and so on and on. 

Computers at this time were relatively expensive, especially if you opted for a color monitor, which cost about $3,000. She chose a model with a black and white monitor at a cost of about $2,500. We got it home and set it up in her office. She started the machine and explored a few of the enclosed programs and suddenly the dot matrix printer just started up on its own and started to spew out gobbledygook. These machinations went on for quite a while and a lot of paper was being wasted. We could not stop the process so we killed the device by unplugging it. 

She called the store where she purchased the computer and was told that this was a normal characteristic and that this behavior even had a name. The computer was printing garbage, which seemed very strange to us because the computer was brand new. She asked the computer “expert” where the garbage was coming from and apparently he started to spew forth garbage on his own with an explanation filled with names and terms which meant virtually nothing to either one of us. 

She was also told not to unplug the computer during the regurgitation process because when plugged back in it would just continue to spew garbage until it was purged from the system. I wondered if a little Pepto-Bismol might be an appropriate antidote. This occasional garbage spewing never really stopped either as she used the computer to do her work. It would just start printing gibberish for an hour or so before it stopped, interrupting her work, which was infuriating for her. Hey, what do you want for $2,500 anyway?

Six years ago I tried to set up a computer and a printer in a retail shop that I owned in Elkins. I had previously connected the two devices with a USB cable in my home, but in the shop I had to have the computer on one side of the shop and the printer had to be on the opposite wall due to lack of space so I could not connect them directly with a cable. I recalled hearing that the connection could be made wirelessly. I tried this on my own for about an hour with no success. 

Luckily, I had purchased the computer at Staples in Claremont and I called them for advice. The clerk was very helpful and explained the connection process pretty much in full to me after two or three phone conversations. He did not even sound as if his eyes had glazed over. It still took me the better part of eight hours to connect the printer to the computer. 

What he had not told me and what he probably thought was glaringly obvious was that the two were supposed to be connected via the internet. The only way I overcame this gap in knowledge was that a customer entered the store while I was humming, very loudly, the theme song from the movie “The Godfather.” This is a habit of mine when I am at my wit’s end and I am considering fixing any perplexing problem with a hammer. Luckily, for me and the computer, he filled me in on the internet connection. After I finally married the devices, I thought, “Oh I get it, the information I want to print will go from my computer onto the internet and travel through Europe, across Asia, back across the United States and into my printer”. Now it all makes sense.