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danielplainview

danielplainview

Lifer
Mar 30, 2014
2,853
78
wv
Ok, I may showing my age and lack of computer skills, but can any explain or link me info about what all the gray boxes with symbols over the post box are used for?

^^ B I U S URL "quote" IMG UL OL LI center code close
Thanks from the old guy.

 
papipeguy

papipeguy

Lifer
Jul 31, 2010
15,778
35
Bethlehem, Pa.
Those are insertion tools. I don't use many but do use the italics if I use a non-English word. I'm sure other more adept than I can give you a full tutorial.

 
indianafrank

indianafrank

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 15, 2014
950
5
Daniel, another great thread you started. Even though I own 2 websites, I am an old 'puter illiterate myself.
Thank God my son is in IT. I keep him busy as a customer, and a free one at that.

 

mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,459
I think it's mindset. I came to computers late, at work, and was not well introduced. But people fifteen years

older than I took to computers. I believe it is both the way ones brain works (or doesn't) and where your skills

lie. I have done some math with facility -- plain geometry where the proofs are advanced in language, and

a little trig with some help from my friends, but I had a non-verbal teacher (really) for algebra and couldn't

keep the inside of the parentheses clear from the outside, and barely passed. Some people synch right in

with computers, regardless of age, and find even the most frustrating resistance within a program a sort of

fun game that rewards persistence and trial and error, and pretty soon they get what they want. I find the

resistance from a program alienating and frustrating. It feels counterintuitive and insulting, even though the

machine has no attitude or consciousness at all. Some minds are built for the binary logical mode and others

think and learn differently ... and alas, that's me. A new device always fills me with resentment.

 
frank13

frank13

Can't Leave
Oct 5, 2014
410
2
Bakersfield, CA
A computer is a tool, just like a lathe, table saw, band saw, or router table. Any new tool is going to have a bit of a learning curve, but with a little faith in yourself, patience, and persistence, anyone can become quite proficient in a very short time. The thing to get over is the fear that you're going to push a button and cause the thing to self-destruct. It's nearly impossible for the basic user to do this, and most computers come with a restoration disc, or the whole system's basic operating system is resident on a separate partition on the hard drive itself.

 
simnettpratt

simnettpratt

Lifer
Nov 21, 2011
1,516
2
At the end, the box letters MCC appeared on the screen. They had vector mapped the initials of the college. I asked how long that had taken them and the answer was a day and a half. Fark that...
Click to expand...
Hey, don't knock that. When my school got it's first TRS-80s, I spent about a week coding in binary. You can work for about twenty minutes, then you can't tell the difference between 1011 0110 and 1010 0101.
Drew an A on the screen. A capital A. Right in the middle of the screen. And it was awesome.

 
frank13

frank13

Can't Leave
Oct 5, 2014
410
2
Bakersfield, CA
Yep. I remember the tape recorder drill with the TI computers in the 80's. Buddy and I programmed, "Hunt The Wumpus," "Parsec," and "Chisolm Trail." What a huge pain in the ass...

 
dottiewarden

dottiewarden

Lifer
Mar 25, 2014
3,053
57
Toronto
Ok, I may showing my age and lack of computer skills
Click to expand...
There are so many possibilities with computers that few people are real masters of what they can offer. We only tend to use what we need and in a way that works for us until we discover something that Works better or expands our abilities. Working with computers has always been on a "need to know" basis; there a simply too many posibilities and you could spend the rest of your life learning things you would never use.
Patrick (ae1pt) just gave us an insightful lesson, but we will probably only use a small portion of what he has shown us: whatever we need to get the job done; nothing more, nothing less!

 
indianafrank

indianafrank

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 15, 2014
950
5
mso489 -even though the machine has no attitude or consciousness at all.
Sorry to disagree. My computer is smarter than I am. EX: why can't I beat it at chess, level 1? :roll:
And how does it remember so many passwords when I have to right them all down? :(

 
danielplainview

danielplainview

Lifer
Mar 30, 2014
2,853
78
wv
Thanks for the tech lessons everyone. I've never had a big want or need for computers or the latest gadget, cell phone, iPad, Kendall,etc.....

Until joining the world of pipe forums, I just used a computer for news and info. ( god knows you can't get that from cable news) btw, I still read real books made of paper. With that said, I'm glad I joined the pipe forum. I've learned more about the hobby this past year on PipesMag, than figuring it out by myself for twenty years.
Slowly drives away with left blinker continuously on.

 
mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,459
Folks with a certain skill set always think the capability is universal, just that they have worked a little harder

and become better at it. That's simply not true. Most of us have a fairly narrow range of talents. Even people

who are remarkably multi-talented often have conspicuous "holes" where they are hopeless -- fabulously successful

career people who can't keep a marriage together no matter how often they try, etc. My first twelve years of school

seemed as much about learning what I couldn't do as learning what I could. If you can find two or three abilities

that are strong in yourself, you can make a life out of that. It's finding a few "footholds" that matter. Most of us

aren't going to do tightrope walking, nor a long list of other things.

 
condorlover1

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
8,066
27,356
New York
Funny old things computers. When my late Mother was alive I was over from the US and showed her my lap top. She thought it was very impressive and then asked me where you put the paper into the type writer!

 
mephistopheles

mephistopheles

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 14, 2014
545
0
On a related note...
I Googled "old people and computers" and a member popped up... That made me smile.


 
checotah

checotah

Part of the Furniture Now
Feb 7, 2012
504
3
@ae1pt, was that Compaq Portable Plus the 30 pound monster that was barely portable? Has one of those for about 2 years, mid-80s. Got tired of lugging it around.
Also had a Trash-80 in the 70s. Remember getting a memory expansion that doubled memory from 16K to 32K, and thought I'd really stepped up. Learned to program in Basic on that machine.
Skip forward to today. Have a laptop on which I do some ACCESS development for a client as part of retirement. Funny thing is, never worked in IT, but did always have IT reporting to me. Would think I'd be more tech savvy...I'm one of the oldsters with a flip phone... never saw the need to be connected anymore than I choose to be with my laptop.

 
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