Okay, I did learn computer with DOS! Let's just say, I didn't learn much. The commands? Helluva way to start out if you ask me!!! And now? I don't even remember what to do to log on if I needed to...with DOS. Nope, no sir..no way, no how!
Then along came Windows™ YES!! Bill Gates was a life saver. Ya, ya..he still is a PITA in some ways, but for me he made computering a whizz!! Yet, I won't forget terms that I've learned either. Like:
A - Acrobat? What the heck is this? We have some crazy loon doing flips and flops and turns on the monitor? And behold! The program itself is by Adobe!! Now wait just a minute!! Isn't adobe a kind of clay house in the desert? Sure 'nough!!!
B - Backup and Recovery? Okay, now maybe some layman would wonder what this is. I had this down pat in my novice years! Ya...I could backup. Backup right into the garage door and see Bud in his recovery mode when the insurance dudes, the claim adjusters, came with their clipboard(clipboards? yep they used to use these little gadgets, but those days are long gone too. It's not what you think it is, nope--it's NOT the PSP clipboard. Gotcha!!!) by and saying the deductible would cover the repair expenses...hmmmm, no money made on that
C - Carbon Copy? Oh sure...in today's time carbon copy is NOT what it used to be!! You don't have to take a reem of paper and place a piece of blue inked sheet between each piece!! Remember how blue your fingers were afterward? With carbon copy today, theres no trick to it. Just click C C. Simple yes? What'll they think of next? Blind carbon copy? It's only found in email, but it's a life saver. And what about fcc? Why of course, that logical it's the FIRST carbon copy you do!! Logical yes?
D - Data Glove? Is this when you go to the bank and have on gloves so you won't leave your fingerprints for the Homeland Security these days? Who's to know just how many bank clerks work for Bush!! LOL Beware!! Seriously tho, back in my first days of working a computer with Windows™ I would have smirked at this expression, data gloves, and probably imagine all kinds of lude maneuvers done with these gloves and my cpu!! But, in all actuality, it IS shaped like a glove and it IS used for fine motion sensitivity. So I wasn't that far off back then!!
E - Just HOW MANY words in the English language can YOU come up with that has legally been changed with an added 'e'? Email, Ebomb, Ecopy, --- umm did you know there is a term EMAIL POSTAGE? Yep, these days there is talk of charging for all emails sent...to avoid spammers! Good idea? I sure as heck hope it doesn't really come to reality...but maybe, just maybe it'd keep those darn junk mails out of my inbox!! Ya want more? How 'bout evoting!!! You guessed it. It's computerized voting!! What'll they come up with next? Et? That'd be computerized toliet paper roll and it'd automatically wipe your ass at the push of the keyboard...but when it's all done doing it's business, don't forget to click on the ESC (escape!)!!
F - FAQ Now, you gotta remember the first time you ever laid your eyes on that baby!! FAQ...hmmmmm, let's see. What the heck could that be? Do I really wanna click on this link that has faq on it? Sounded absurd in my mind back in the days of pre XP...perhaps it's something on the porn side...maybe I should call Bud in so he can peruse this at his leisure!! Well, you can only imagine my surprise when I found the link actually answered my questions!! Questions!!! Who woulda ever thought the 'q' stood for questions. I did say I'd cover the term floppy disks...well, I haven't had so many floppies in my life 'til I met Windows!!! Windows made me floppy in a great many terms! Does exercise come to mind...or lack thereof?
G - Giga Byte Now here's my dilemma! It's actually one whole word -gigabyte, but with shortcuts and such the way it is these days, you normally see this abbreviated G and B! --showing the layman it's two words. Well it isn't, so let me set you straight. And 20 years ago, did we ever hear of giga before? We thought we were lucky to have MEGAbytes!! Wow, that giga must be one huge mother!! 'Cause a giga is approximately 1 billion separate little nibbles!! Or 2 to the 30th power...or maybe this will help explain better---1,073,741,824 in decimal notation. But don't get confused when I mentioned little nibbles 'cause giga is Greek for giant!!
H - Hacker Now back in my day of learning DOS and then discovering there IS a better world when Windows™ came into being---back in those days of yore, hacky sacks were popular, so I assumed that a hacker was one who played hours upon hours out on their sidewalks with a little bean filled sack and showing the world their talented feet!!! But nooooooooo, nope. Wrong again. Why they now have a newly revised Hacker's dictionary for crying out loud!! That's for laymen? Probably not, especially if you've never even heard of DOS!! Oh ya, the term 'hacker' is defined as a 'clever programmer'......hmm. Now I consider myself clever when I leave the computer alone and go to the remote and actually click the correct TV station I wanna watch. Now to me that is a clever programmer!!!
I - IE Believe it or not, there is actually an explorer other than windows explorer!! And this is Internet Explorer. Back 20 years or so, I would have never believed anyone who'd come up to me and tell me I could explore the internet!! 20 years ago I didn't even KNOW there was an internet!! Hmmmmmm, Internet. That's another term I'll cover someday!! (By the way, there are now quite a few verions of IE!! Hmmmmmm, fancy that!! Ol' Billy knows how to get the people mesmerized doesn't he?
J - Jiffy Yep, jiffy! Now sure, anyone knows that jiffy is quick, brief, or maybe even considered a fast unspecified time! Well, believe it or not, WRONG! Not in computer terms anyway. In computer engineering, the length of time between successive microprocessor clock cycles is sometimes called a jiffy. This interval gets shorter as clock speeds increase. In a computer with a 2-gigahertz microprocessor, the jiffy is 0.5 nanosecond or 5 x 10-10 second. Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask!!!
K - Keyboard Wedge Okay, even back in the days of DOS, you had to have a keyboard. And when you had an uneven surface to set your keyboard on--you probably wedged it so it wouldn't make noise and wake your family while you typed away, right? Makes sense to me!! Wedging the keyboard to make it more solid when in use!!! But no...........not true! A keyboard wedge can be either a software program or an inserted hardware device that translates digital signals from a barcode reader. Well lookie there!---wedge=program!
L - Layer Now don't get me started! Layer? Like a three layer cake maybe? Isn't there any logic to computer terms? There are actually TWO definitions. Yep, two!! We all probably understand layers in terms of cakes and such...well, layer can be actually 'layers' or components of layers in a multiple layered image! So there *raspeberries to you*---layers!! BUT wait!! There seems to be another term layer that is associated with computers! This layer is the organization of programming into separate functional components that interact in some sequential and hierarchical way, with each layer usually having an interface only to the layer above it and the layer below it.
M - Matrix Now who in their right minds would ever dream there would be a mega hit movie of the same term back in the days of DOS? In Latin the term matrix means, liberally, womb-or in my terms, mother. So perhaps in today's time of cyberculture it could be a motherboard of some holorgraphic view?
N -Netiquitte One of my most favorite new terms in the last couple of decades!! Netiquitte! I still have to laugh at the tone of this word. It's funny. Ever hear of Armour brand junky meat slop called SPAM?!! That is poor netiquitte in so many terms!!!
O - OOBlick Oh ya, right!!! I wouldn't touch this term with a 10' pole back in 1980s!! Shhhhhhhhhhhh!! I had kids in the house back then!!!
LOL --Actually it's a hacker term. A term derived from Suess. And it's loose definition would be a "mixture of cornstarch and water, making or forming a solid that can be cracked". But this term reminds me today of the song "Ooblick dee Ooblick dah....ahhhh, life goes on!"
P - Pay Pal Ya!! I like that one. I would have liked it back then too! Anyone who pays me would be MY pal!!!
Q - Quiet Zone. Oh ya baby, this is a good term for me too! I love my solitude. Give me DOS and a quiet zone and I'm livin'!! No? Well, it's not quite exactly how it sounds. Quiet zone in cyberland is the blank margin on either side of a bar code that's used to tell the barcode reader where a barcode's symbology starts and stops. SEE? I just know you wanted to know that!!
R - Reboot Simple enough for DOS users! Yes? Your kids' boots get too small for their feet, you reboot 'em!! No problem. But really, let's get serious. To reboot you're actually restarting your computer, and it can be accomplished in several different ways. Yet, did you know about WARM boot vs. COLD boot! And did you know that warm boot is much more gentle? *wink* Yep, warm boot in all actuality pushing a few buttons as opposed to just unplugging or just shutting off the computer! Hmmmmm, I see the connection...warm, pushing the right buttons!!! Cold? Well, slam bang, thank you ma'am!!
S - Scooter Of course I knew what scooter was in DOS days! Any fool knew that. It was something you could ride! And it was fun!! No? No, not in today's computer terms. It's not that easy! A scooter is a web crawler! See the letter "W"!
T - T interface In Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) service, a T interface is the electrical interface between a network terminating unit 1 (NT1) and a network terminating unit 2 (NT2) device, which typically is a private branch exchange (PBE). Like the S interface, the T interface has four wires, allowing up to eight devices to be addressed. In Basic Rate Interface (Basic Rate Interface in ISDN) ISDN, the bits that flow from the central office through the NT1 are divided into two 64 Kbps channels (known as B, or bearer, channels) and one 16 Kbps channel (the D, for data or delta, channel) for control signals. The control signals allow a specific device to be addressed. And there you have it folks...T interface!! And you thought it was time for tea!!
U - Unix Now back before internet I'd never heard of unix. But what else is new? By this time, if you're still here reading, you can see that I didn't know diddly squat. But Unix is actually an offical trademark developed by Bell Labs in 1969!! And to think I used computers AFTER 1969 and never heard of until my loving Bill Gates introduced me to Windows™!
V Video Blog Well, I can't do a blog entry without using the term "blog". Blog is a shortened term for weblog. Like a ships log perhaps...a diary of such, but on the web! And web is a loose term used for the internet and the web of links to view and become more educated with the computer's use!! I can see you're getting educated a lot today anyway....but video blog is just what it says! (Thank goodness, something that makes sense!!) It's a blog entry that has video content! And it can be shortened to the term 'vlog'!! Oh dear!! Yep, you read it correctly a new term!!!---V L O G!
W - Webcrawler easy, simple...one who crawls (surfs, as in riding the waves) the web. Nope, not a spider like it would have been when using DOS.
X X coordinate Now, if back a long time ago while studying algebra, if x=y then the simplicity of math would astound you. But no...it's not that simple with using Windows™! X coordinate is respectively the horizontal and vertical addresses of any pixel or addressable point on a computer display screen. Or in more simple terms, The x coordinate is a given number of pixels along the horizontal axis of a display starting from the pixel (pixel 0) on the extreme left of the screen.
Y - and you can't have the x without the y (see above with the algebra term, x=y) Y coordinate The Y coordinate is a given number of pixels along the vertical axis of a display starting from the pixel (pixel 0) at the top of the screen. Together, the x and y coordinates locate any specific pixel location on the screen. x and y coordinates can also be specified as values relative to any starting point on the screen or any subset of the screen such as an image.
Now you put x and y together and it equals W. Not!! But the results would show you a web page, or a web log. Or whatever else you refer to the surfing of the web, while webcrawling.
Z - Well, I could actually bore you stiff with the definition of Z coordinate being that 'z' actually is the 3 D coordinate, but I won't!!
Instead....nighty nite!! Z-z-z-z-z-z-z Oh but wait!!! Before you fall asleep, in case you really wanna know what all this was about. My reference to DOS! Do you remember what DOS was? You don't? Never heard of it? I learned computer work with DOS. It's was the first widely-installed operating system for personal computers. I learned on an IBM. And you thought I was going to come up with something odd and silly like Dummy Operations System!!!!
Wystful1 * Melli * Ramblins of a middle-aged goddess * Wystful1 * Wystful1 * PJ * Wystful1 * praynlady *
8 Comments:
No fudge left? *bummed* Guess I'll have to make a trip to Dairy Queen then. *smile* Glad you are liking the book Chi...Grisham is a great author.
LOL! Well... I "remember" DOS! DOS is still alive and well -- and the command central for virtually every version of Windows! You can still get to it on your computer today... but who WANTS to? (actually, I had to the other day to troubleshoot the kids computer when the Net board went bad...) It's still a nightmare! LOL!
This was a nifty alphabet Wys!
Man, you wrote that all yourself? You are very talented!! I feel like I should just stop blogging forever!! Guess I will keep up in my small little way though. Very good. I just barely remember DOS because I was then AFRAID of computers but never again will I say that!! I will not ever again let them get ahead of me!!!
Ya Melli....I know it's still part of Windows, like you said tho.......when you have Windows who wants to use DOS
flip-flop...it took me from last night until this morning to finish it! (I started helping my daughter a while ago with looking up command prompts and it's still just as odd to me now as it was way back when!!!)
Wow, that's a list!
And a good one too.
Learning2FlyAgain:
Last sentence--say what? roflmao...see that jargon gets me no where fast, I tellya!!!
TFF
lylm
Good morning,
Just checking out some blogs from the BC's and saw you were from TEXAS, and thought I'd stop by and say howdy.
I am thinking that maybe I would have to have a
"DOS for dummies" book! lol
This post took a lot of thought! Have a great day!
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