Tryst with Computer - Part 1

When I was writing about blog on communication, some more thoughts poured in. Memory flashed back 20 years… A novice who does not know anything about computers, never undergone any formal courses or possess a degree like BCA or MCA till date, came to my mind. Needless to say that novice is me…

All those events, associated terminologies, struggle, excitement, pain, joy and transformations flashed across my mind. As I was munching those wonderful moments, thought of putting those on record. Every individual must have faced more or less of these things in one’s life too. In this part, the first 10 years experience is shared....

It was in 1991 at Kanpur I had my first exposure to computers. Though excitement was there to see the machine spill and spew calculations, records and print outs, hesitation was also at peak as lack of knowledge played a dominant role. It was Bala and Gopu who allayed my fears and thus started my journey. They remain my first Gurus. 132 column, 80 column papers, EPSON dot-matrix printers, Single digit memory (in GB) hard disc computer, 64 MB RAM were a huge thing those days. 512MB floppy discs (5^1/4 in size) were a surprise for me.  Putting ON and OFF and subsequent logging in was a big task to learn. Loading paper in printer and taking a printout made me very happy as if I have achieved a very big thing, that too after wasting lot of papers for one print out!!!. How to load paper in fan fold mode, which I learnt later, is a different story.

Operating system like DOS (equal to present day windows 7 or linux), software like Word star (MS Word now), LOTUS 1-2-3 (Excel now), Dbase (equal to MS Access) were in vogue. The height of my knowledge was that I did not know the difference between an operating system and application software at that point of time. Though I worked in all these software, of course under constant guidance, someone had to help me always for one or other thing. Entering that computer room was a nightmarish experience. Working in Word star release7 (latest version in 92 – 93) was talk of the town. Word wrap feature (equal to “justify” now) was a beautiful thing I remember at that time. This learning opportunity was restricted to first 4 years as I have been shifted to a new function. Though had direct access, I could not spend much time in learning process…

In 1997, when I went to Guwahati, it was a mandatory thing to complete a 15 day crash course as part of computer literacy (though not a formal course and cannot be treated at par with courses offered by Institutions) for every newly transferred individual. But the irony of this course is that they were teaching still DOS, LOTUS, WORD STAR and DBASE, whereas Windows 95NT, Windows 97 were used in offices!!!

A responsibility was thrust on me to work in computer again after a brief break. Should I call this destiny or something? For the first time I had no support to help or teach me. I did not know how to work in Windows 95 environment, though it was menu supported user friendly environment. On the top of it, I was asked to make a presentation comprising almost 80 slides with transitions, animations to be completed within 4 days. Presentations those days used to be in transparencies till that point of time. Copying onto higher memory 1.44 MB but small size floppy diskettes was another problem. I was struggling for copying a file in “Save as” / “Rename” option. Hesitation of Dragging a file or folder into another file / folder was evident. Handling mouse was not in my control!!! Lot of complexities.. It was a hell of an experience. 

It was at this point I went to the boss and told him all my difficulties and that I cannot handle all of this.  I did not know from where the guts and gumption came from, to tell him. Probably the gravity of the situation forced me. To my surprise, he was smiling and appreciated me for my frankness. To add to the surprise, he personally came and sat with me to teach me for nonstop 4 hours about MS WORD, Excel, Power point and Access. I owe and remain indebted forever to JK Singh for whatever I did accomplish later.

To be continued....