Just One More Change

The computer monitor was black. When you turned it on it grew to a dull green colour. When it was ready there was a steady “C:” appearing on the top let side of the screen. The “C:” was known as a C Prompt… and now you were ready to begin your work in the dark area. As you typed commands other screens would appear – 90% were work related. You would enter data, type a letter and possibly even create new programs in the programming mode – where you would write in Code what you wanted to show up on the screen.

Oh we did have some radical games in the machine as well. There was “Pong” –where the ‘ball’ bounced from one side to the other. As quick as you could you moved a ‘paddle’ up and down on the left side or right side (there were two ‘paddles’ and you used four keyboard keys to move them)

They added something new within that first few years – more games and more programs – which meant more training for the programs. They also added a hard drive – that increased the amount of information that you could store on the machine. Up to that moment you used a square, pliable Mylar sheet that was round, and mounted in a square cardboard holder. The whole thing was bendable. The surface of the Mylar sheet held all the electrical charges that the programmer had placed on it. “Pong” was on one sheet and “Battleship” – and of course Word Perfect came this way as well.

Talk about the Dinosaur age. That was so long ago – 1981-1982 – around 25 years ago. WOW!

Then change began. The change would be massive – from one new computer to the next. You couldn’t keep up. It cost a fortune to say the least. When we went to the first computers with the new colourful “Windows” program we all stared at the screen in the computer shops. WOW! No more black screen – the “Black DOS” was gone behind the colour.

The new machines had hard drives that replaced the need for stacks of “floppy disks”… The Floppy Disks were now hard plastic and if you bent them they would break – but you still called them “Floppies”. Each Floppy held an amazing 1.44 MB(Megabyte) of info. The new hard drives, mounted in the computer were a whopping 20 MB…even up to 45 MB. There in front of me was the first “286 Computer”… soon followed by a “386 Computer” but that was then replaced by the “486 Computer” with all new bells and whistles. The amount of programs that it offered was amazing. Hard Drives inside these babies were at least 150 MB – and if you had the money you could buy both a bigger Hard Drive and MORE RAM! Everyone needed more RAM.

The “386” sold for about $3600. The date was 1987. The “486” came to my area in about 1991 and it was about $2000 with the printer and the programs that they offered. Things over all were coming down in price. But if you wanted a larger Hard Drive it was over $475 for a 450 MB drive.

At this point - I have lost you “non-computer people” I know.
The new computers have 250 Gigabyte (GB) Hard Drives with at least 2 GB of RAM.

Compare this…

• The first Floppy Disk started at less than one half a million bits of information – 500 K
• The second Floppy was at 1.44 MB – or One Million, four hundred and forty thousand bits of information.
• The 250 MB Hard Drive held 250 times more than the 1.44 MB floppy.
• The 1 GB Hard Drive held 4 times the 250 MB HD.
• The new computer I have now holds 250 times more than the 1 GB Hard Drive – sitting at a whopping 250 GB…
• Or… it is 500 Million Times larger than the Floppy Disk that I began with….

Each change took buckets of reading and much time to get a handle on the new machine that just came out.

As a pastor I had to deal with some marital problems as wives were feeling cheated on as their husbands were with the computer too much. So much money was spent on the computer that some families were going broke.

This week…
I have taken another step into the Computer World and the new future…. I am now a “Vista Man”. What does that mean? It means more change… lots of it. In fact at this stage it has meant some very early mornings and late nights as I try to understand the next wave that I am riding. Normal people wouldn’t have that much to do – but for me that isn’t possible – I HAVE TO UNDERSTAND.

I have progressed some over these years…
From DOS with the Black Screen, to the new “Windows 3.1”, then to “Windows 95” – which was quickly followed by the “ Windows 98” – to be replaced by “Windows 2000” and “Windows Millennium” and that was all shoved aside for the new “ Windows XP” operating system. This week I jumped again to the new “Vista” operating system.

Just one more change… Oh Boy….

The man that I met a few weeks ago started remembering a long ways back. He was 92 years old. He remembered when his dad bought their first car. It was the first car in their neighbourhood. Everyone else had horses. He told me the name of their horses… ‘Ned’ and ‘Clem’. He told me that he remembers the first farm tractor that they bough as well. Everyone else had four team horses. That all happened in the first 10 years of his life on their farm.

The old man has watched the changes in airplanes from two wings and an open cockpit to the super sized jets we have today. He has been there looking at the moon with his new girl friend over 70 years ago…. to then see men walking on that moon. The changes in 92 years are phenomenal.

I sat with him beside his computer that has “Windows XP” on it. When we talked about the possible change up to “Vista” he wasn’t so sure he could remember all that would be needed.

Guess what… This “Vista” is designed for old computer guys that have stuck with it… any dummy can do this.

Just one more change – I can do it!

We are beginning another support group at the church in the New Year. “Survivors of Microsoft Window Changes” will meet on every other Wednesday night. You bring your own computer and we supply the coffee. It will be designed to help people like me take the step into the new world.

Just one more change….

~ Pastor Murray Lincoln ~