THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702080099
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 86 lines
THE OTHER NIGHT, during his State of the Union address, I heard President Clinton say that he wanted every schoolchild in America to be able to use computers.
I'm hoping to do that by my 70th birthday. Oh, I can type on computers; I'm doing that right now. But I don't ``use'' them in the full sense of the word.
I'm a computer idiot.
Until a few months ago, I had a home computer called a Kaypro 2000. It was so old that the store where I bought it has gone out of business. It's been converted into an herbal take-out joint where they dispense ginseng egg rolls and green tea.
I couldn't get service or parts for the old machine, so I used the want ads to find a 5-year-old Macintosh for my den. I had no idea how to use the software that makes it run. Actually, it doesn't run . . . it just creeps from one thing to another.
The fellow who set up my Macintosh is known in my neighborhood as the Mac Merlin. He knows all about Macs. When he dropped over to set up my computer, I asked him if he knew what I could do with my old Kaypro, which had cost about $800.
Mac Merlin - who wears wire-rimmed glasses, a ball hat and a focused look as though he is waiting for the CD-ROM (whatever that is) - to kick in behind his eyes - suggested I dig out the insides and use the glass screen as a viewing port for fish.
My new Mac - well, it's new to me - is a big improvement over the Kaypro, which would not come on unless I turned a crank in the back and punched in enough letters to make a good start on a novel.
Learning to deal with my new computer was very frustrating. For instance, if you make a mistake while using it, you get a warning which can take many forms: a duck quack, a bing, a gulp, a plink, etc.
I had no idea computers had such variety. Mac Merlin programmed the mistake mechanism to make a duck quack when I made an error. It drove me crazy. And it didn't do much for my dog Mabel, either. She rose from her bed to investigate every quack. She stayed busy. At times my computer room sounded like feeding time at Ducks R Us.
So I phoned Mac Merlin to come over and change the duck sound to something else. It didn't take him long. He didn't even charge for the visit.
The next day, I made a mistake with the computer and a woman's voice made the following sound, which emerged from the computer speaker:
``OH, OH, OHHHHHH GOD!''
It was either a woman undergoing electrical shock treatments or an orgasm. I suspected - and now know it to be - the latter. It is an unsettling sound, but I have decided to leave the woman alone - whatever her name and wherever she is inside the computer - because she seems to be enjoying herself.
About a year ago, I decided to join the World Wide Web or the information highway or whatever it is people are talking about at cocktail parties. Mac Merlin fed the software into the machine to get me ``online.'' But I never could. A little ball representing the Earth would whirl around on my screen but nothing ever happened.
Nothing. The world kept spinning like a basketball on the finger of God, but I never got connected. I just figured the Lord didn't want me online. I stayed on that offline frame of mind until recently.
Then, about two weeks ago, Mac Merlin dropped by to investigate my problem. After an hour of fiddling with the Mac he said: ``No wonder you couldn't connect. There's a short-circuit in your modem!''
To which I replied, `OH, OH, OHHHH GOD!''
I do that because I have no idea what a modem is or does. And if Mac Merlin told me, I wouldn't understand. He said I'd need a new modem and that the old one had no value unless I intended to paint it and use it as a rock inside the Kaypro when I made an aquarium of it.
Turns out I couldn't get online with the new modem I purchased at Modems Worldems, either. ``Your software is outdated now and you can't connect until the online service provides you with a new disc,'' Mac Merlin explained.
``OH, OH, OHHHH GOD,'' I replied.
But he said I could use e-mail. So in the past few days I have been attempting to send e-mail messages to Princess Liberal Right-Thinker, who has an online computer and could receive them on her computer screen. The process has pretty near exhausted Wendy, or Debbie, or whoever it is having such a hot time behind the computer.
The e-mail messages contained vital inquiries such as: ``Did you get this test message? Did you get my second test message?'' etc.
After sending each message, I would phone the Princess to ask if she got it.
``Have you stopped to think how stupid this is?'' Princess asked. ``If you have something to tell me, just do it on the phone!''
OH, OH, OHHHH GOD! ILLUSTRATION: JANET SHAUGHNESSY
The Virginian-Pilot