I've been involved in many computer courses, as a participant and also a facilitator. Sometimes when I step into a roomful of ICT-aware young so-and-so's, they look at me and immediately dismiss me as an 'auntie' who probably needed to be taught how to hold a mouse. Auntie ah, the mouse you right-click and left-click like this one...
Ah but sometimes I do get my revenge.
You see, the kids nowadays learn computers from the cradle but their computers have mice and trackballs and joysticks. The computer I learned how to use way back when only had a keyboard. Mice back then were animals you chased with a broomstick..or a parang.
The first computers I used didn't have Windows. They had DOS. For those young 'uns out there, DOS has C prompts and A prompts and strings of code people memorized. When we migrated to Wordstar and Wordperfect, we also had to memorize commands such as CTRL-TAB or CTRL-F. If you mastered Wordperfect, you were almost a demigod because there would be nothing for you to use but a totally blank screen and the keyboard. Years of using such commands have made it almost second nature for me to use keys as shortcuts. Such as using CTRL-i to italicise this sentence.
But back to my revenge....ah yes... imagine a non-functioning mouse and a deadline in ten minutes. Suddenly auntie can save the day.
CTRL-P....!
Ah but sometimes I do get my revenge.
You see, the kids nowadays learn computers from the cradle but their computers have mice and trackballs and joysticks. The computer I learned how to use way back when only had a keyboard. Mice back then were animals you chased with a broomstick..or a parang.
The first computers I used didn't have Windows. They had DOS. For those young 'uns out there, DOS has C prompts and A prompts and strings of code people memorized. When we migrated to Wordstar and Wordperfect, we also had to memorize commands such as CTRL-TAB or CTRL-F. If you mastered Wordperfect, you were almost a demigod because there would be nothing for you to use but a totally blank screen and the keyboard. Years of using such commands have made it almost second nature for me to use keys as shortcuts. Such as using CTRL-i to italicise this sentence.
But back to my revenge....ah yes... imagine a non-functioning mouse and a deadline in ten minutes. Suddenly auntie can save the day.
CTRL-P....!
Comments
I used to be so proud that I could navigate windows 3.1 entirely on keyboard shortcuts :p hahahahahaha~ a bit harder with xp/vista though :/