Author: CL8 TeeKay
Department: Sector Commander, Alder Hill |
All I needed to know in life I learned in OTF; or: Why I don't listen to weather forecasts any more
There is so much in our lives we take for granted these days. Take computers, for instance.
I can still remember when my dad brought home his first personal computer. It was a Sinclair ZX-81, and it must have been in 1984 or thereabouts. Not long before that, we had borrowed a computer game from a friend. It was big, and black, and you hooked it up to the TV, and the only game it had was "Pong".
Believe it or not, it was great fun to sit in front of the TV playing Pong with these ridiculous joysticks you had back then. It even had sound! Ok, so it was the sound of things going "bip" and "bleep", and the only colour it had was black and white, but back then, this was state of the art. As was the Sinclair ZX-81, which was quickly upgraded to a Sinclair Spectrum. Both these early computers were no bigger than what's now considered a good sized keyboard, and it was made of mainly rubber. I bet it could even bounce like a rubber ball. Again, you hooked it up to the TV, and the programs it ran were simple but efficient.
My dad was, and is, fascinated by computers. The next one he brought home was a Commodore 64, and it's still lurking in the basement, next to a folder of big flimsy floppy discs full of games. Floppy discs were the upgrade, mind you, we started with "datasettes", which is a glorified tape recorder. I remember watching a TV show on computers and programming back then, where in the end they would play a program as sound over the TV. This you could record on your tape recorder and, if you were very lucky, the recorded program would then also work.
Printing was done on big, clunky, loud and slow printers that my cat used to love to lie on as it got nice and warm after working through the pages, which were all on one long continuous strip of paper with perforation between the sheets and at the sides, where there were little holes you had to carefully feed into the machine so it could transport the paper.
Back then, you weren't considered someone who worked with computers if you didn't know how to program it. You needed to know how to program it, because things like "user-friendliness" or "desktop icons" were a long way away. You needed to know the correct phrases to type into the C64 in order to load and execute a program. If you were very good, you knew a few peeks and pokes to give you unlimited lives in some of the games we stayed up all nights to play - but only on Saturdays because the other days there was school next morning. All programs and games had to be learned intuitively, because most people we knew only got the program but not a user manual. Wonder why... ;)
A very clever friend of mine got so much into hacking (hacking, mind you, not cracking) that he wrote a little program which made the read head on the external floppy drive jump from place to place and search a non-existant floppy, with the end result that this scratching and searching played a tune.
After a while, computers got bigger and more powerful, and we were proud to get a new and gleaming 86 processor. DOS came around, which was still much like we were used to. Mice were born. And then, there was Windows, which took so long to boot that you could go get a cup of coffee before it was done.
These days, someone is considered technologically behind the moon if they don't own a computer. Computers have become very affordable, and so has the Internet. Those who were on the forefront of technology in the 80s and early 90s, who have learned about personal computers from the very beginning, and who can still remember DOS commands and C64 BASIC, are caught between a chuckle and a groan when faced with computer newbies who treat this technology like something approaching magic. Believe me, I know what I am talking about, having taught classes of newbies. Common sense, which enables people to correctly operate cars, alarm clocks and washing machines, seems to go out the window when they sit down in front of a computer for the first time.
The trick, when dealing with questions from people who've not had the luck to have a dad who loves technological gadgets, is not to forget that everyone was a Newbie once. Everyone has had the experience of sitting down in front of a computer for the first time, or eating with chopsticks for the first time, or driving a car for the first time. When dealing with newbies, remember that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.
What has all this to do with the title of this editorial? you ask.
Easily explained. Five years ago, or thereabouts, Ten Forward - The Interactive Chatroom opened. I was lucky enough to be led to it in its very early days and, just like with the first computer game, I sat in front of the screen happily typing away and surprised by this interactiveness. "Hang on, he's from where? I'm talking to a Canadian, a few Americans, and a Brits!" It was very much a "wow"-experience.
Back in those early days, after the departments were created, everyone did basically everything. I learned about HTML, images, and life in an online world. My written english improved (I hope - except for apostrophes...). I also learned that knowing about HTML and image design does not make one a great web designer, and that you never stop learning. I actually got my first job after Uni because of the things I learned in here. Ten Forward back then had about 200 members, and everyone knew everyone else, more or less.
These days, our membership has increased incredibly. Instead of one chat room, we have five. We have many talented people of all ages working together to make OTF even better than it is now. We have Unions in real life, meeting those we formerly only knew as Avatars and lines of text. We phone people up who live on the other side of the world. And people who were there from the start are caught between a chuckle and a groan when they see new members struggling with the send / receive buttons, ask why there's no auto-refresh, or how to get promoted, because this is all so intuitive and natural to us. Again, when dealing with Newbies, remember you were a Newbie once too, and no question is stupid only because you've heard it gazillion times.
The community has grown, and those who were there from the start might say that it was so much better in the early days, much like those people who learned basic and assembler on C64s will say that it was so much better when those who owned a computer were an exclusive little club. But life is change. Those same people will probably not want to part with their Pentium PCs, and we cannot and should not go back to the Ten Forward of 1997.
OTF for me is still a continuing learning experience.
I learned about different time zones, and can tell you at the drop of a hat what the time is in the UK, Texas, Vancouver or Australia. I learned that, even though we all speak English most of the time, we don't neccessarily speak the same language. I learned that you have to be clear and precise in communication, because it's very easy to be misunderstood in an essentially text-based medium. I learned that though we may all be human and basically the same deep down, we are also defined by the culture we grew up and live in. I learned about different cultures, too, and that you can be friends with someone literally on the other side of the world. I learned which topics are safe and which are better avoided - going into the CCC and proclaiming proudly that Trek is so much better than Wars will inevitably lead to a debate. I found out whom to ask when I have a question about a specific language, or a phrase that is unfamiliar to me. I don't listen to the weather report any more because all I have to do is ask someone from the Netherlands or the UK how the weather is there and know that it will be the same here in a day or two.
And I'm going to keep on learning. I'm still a Newbie.
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