Computers of the Past

Computers have changed throughout the years.
You can see many of these at The Computer History Museum.

My Laptops

After dumping my Compaq PC, I bought a Compaq Presario 1700 laptop from my friend, Marlene.

It was my first laptop.

This allowed me to connect to the internet much faster than ever before. I was able to add all of my CD's to it and listen to them whenever I wanted. I carried it around with me on the weekends when I had papers to finish. I even added memory to it. It lasted me about 2 years. When I took it to get it repaired, I was told that it was dropped and couldn't be fixed. I couldn't believe my ears since I never dropped it. I later found out that my boyfriend did it and was afraid to admit it.

My next laptop was even better. Once again, I went to my friend Marlene to get another computer. Her girlfriend sold me the coolest laptop that I still own today. It's an Acer Ferrari 3400. It has a shiny red top and it sounds like a sports car when you turn it on. It has excellent graphics and a clear sound. I learned how to use a flash drive around the time I bought this computer. I don't take it outside much because I fear that it could get stolen. It has 128 mb of memory. That's a huge change from the 64kb computers of the 80's.

Learning the Computer at Work

When I first started my job at Macfadden Publishing
in 2005, I was not as computer literate as I am today. I knew how to type on Microsoft Word but I didn't know how to use Excel. I learned on the job with help from my friend, Marlene. She taught me how to create and edit rows and columns. She also taught me how to save documents in a file, name the file, create new folders, and delete folders. There are still things that I don't know, such as mail merge. Since taking this class, Digital Literacy, I feel more confident and able to learn more programs.

My First Computer

My first computer was a Compaq with Windows 95. The director at my job at the YMCA Elesair Project was throwing it away so she said I could have it. I used Earthlink's dial up to access the internet. It took so long to connect to the internet that I had time to go to the kitchen and make a snack. When I came back, it was still connecting. I basically used this computer to access my e-mail because it was too slow for anything else. I dumped this computer after a few years.

Before my PC

Let's take a trip down memory lane. Shall we? Before I had my own PC, I had a Brother daisy wheel word processor. It was a WP-3650 with a 14" screen and a 3.5 240Kb floppy disk drive. I couldn't store that much information back then with 240Kb. Some disks were provided by the manufacturer and had spreadsheets, sample letters, and a thesaurus saved on them. I typed many papers for school on this baby. I also used it for storing my written poems that I wrote in the past. I typed my first resume on it as well. When I was bored, I played Tetris on it.

What's the difference between this and a computer?

Well, first of all, there was no mouse attached to it. To type, you used the keys on the typewriter which was attached to the screen with a wire. There were save options and print options on the keypad.

My first Computer Class

I took my first computer class at FDR high school in 1987. The computers were IBM, with about 64Kb of memory and used 5.25 floppy disks. The font on the screens were green.






Since there were not enough computers, everyone had to share their computer with one other person. During the class, we learned how to use BASIC.


Here's an example of BASIC:



10 INPUT "What is your name: "; U$
20 PRINT "Hello "; U$
30 REM
40 INPUT "How many stars do you want: "; N
50 S$ = ""
60 FOR I = 1 TO N
70 S$ = S$ + "*"
80 NEXT I
90 PRINT S$
100 REM
110 INPUT "Do you want more stars? "; A$
120 IF LEN(A$) = 0 THEN GOTO 110
130 A$ = LEFT$(A$, 1)
140 IF (A$ = "Y") OR (A$ = "y") THEN GOTO 40
150 PRINT "Goodbye ";
160 FOR I = 1 TO 200
170 PRINT U$; " ";
180 NEXT I
190 PRINT

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My Computer Teacher

My computer teacher's name was Mr. Chen. He was tall with black hair and dark eyes. He was very serious about teaching us technology. He was a good teacher but he tended to get annoyed with our class because many of us wouldn't pay attention to him. I was one of the students who was guilty of being a chatterbox. During one class, he actually came over to my computer station and pulled my chair away from my partner while I was still in it! The whole class laughed and I was embarrassed. I was quiet after that day.

My own blog

Hi everyone!

I've created this blog for Digital Literacy and this is my first entry. I am having fun creating
my photostory. I hope it's a great masterpiece!

Here is my photostory project My Birthday