HP skills aren't easy for an old Underwood guy
HP skills aren't easy for an old Underwood guy
By: Bill Mead
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
Viewed 300 times
0 responses 0 comments When I learned to type back in the 1940s nearly every typewriter was a manual like my dad's Underwood. There were a few electrics around at that time but they were few and far between. I think the first electric machine was called the Woodstock but I might have that confused with the famous hippie concert in New York which came later. Electrics didn't gain wide use, however, until IBM got into the act. Their typewriters dominated the business world for at least a couple of decades before computers took over.
The upshot is that I learned to type by literally pounding the keys, which was necessary with most manual typewriters. I continued to type that way when I switched to electrics although it wasn't necessary. Long after everybody at the News was using McIntosh computers I was still hammering away on my IBM in the back corner, fighting off Lori Nardini's increasingly-menacing demands that I switch to a computer so she wouldn't have to retype my stuff.
The day I gave in to Lori is still remembered at the News. I attacked the Mac the same way I did that old Underwood. Everybody in the place winced and cringed, expecting parts to begin flying off the computer at any moment. Finally, Lori came over and put a stop to my demolition derby, explaining that a light touch was all that was needed to activate the keyboard.
Learning not to beat the machine into rubble is about as far as I have gone in mastering the computer, although I have been using these infernal gadgets now for more than 20 years. Since I was deposed as News publisher I have been writing at home where I can't holler for Lori when something goes wrong with my Hewlett-Packard. But I do have the Computer Animals, much to their sorrow. At least twice a year I'm on the phone sniveling to Linda that the HP quit on me or that I have gone into the ditch trying to renew the Norton anti-virus software. Whenever she hears from me, Linda's sighs can be heard as far as Albuquerque. She knows instinctively that my ineptness has caused the misery and that I have a compulsion to compound the original disaster by trying to fix it myself.
The last crisis came just a couple of weeks ago when, right in the middle of checking my e-mail, the screen exploded with gibberish that made as much sense as the instructions that came with my last income tax form. Foolishly, I tried to do what it said on the screen. Bad move.
While the skyrockets were still going off on the monitor, I called the Computer Animals and Bob answered. He quickly grasped the seriousness of the situation and took immediate action. He handed the phone to Linda. After a couple of sighs, Linda directed me to bring the box in for her inspection. “Box” is computer talk meaning the big thingie that sits on the floor which I always plug the wrong plugs into.
As you already suspect, it took Linda almost five minutes to undo my mischief. At times like this she never bothers telling me what I did wrong, most likely because she thinks it will encourage me to do it again. She mumbled something about a “Skype” which is a little camera I had mounted atop the computer, never knowing for a second what I was doing. She knocked the Skype out of the box and the HP is working better than ever.
In case you're looking for one, I have this Skype in perfect con…Hey, you're not listening to me!
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