Clarke's Term Paper - finally arrives!.....

When is a Computer a Can Opener?

At first glance this seems a nebulous query - what is this guy talking about anyway? Actually, when I first purchased a computer in January 1992, this was exactly my reasoning. No offense intended, to those who have been programming - or at least using - computers from back in the 80's, 70's, or even earlier. In those days, I remember hearing horror stories of  taking hours to write a program that would simply print "Hello World" onscreen. I remember thinking at the time, that even with my then meager typing skills I could get the same affect - on paper - in about 5 seconds. To say the least, I was not impressed. 

What swayed me - in all honesty - was a combination of my own curiosity, and Bill Gates' "Vaporware"! At the time I first began looking (early 1991), Windows was just coming out - 3.0 was the cutting edge at the time - and I started perusing the fledgling Ziff Davis publications such as PC Magazine. All the bluster, smoke and mirrors, and Vaporware (over-rated software that wasn't available for years after an article was written about it) and I was hooked. Little did I realize at the time (but was made rudely aware over the ensuing years), that Windows didn't work as smoothly and reliably as billed, and neither did a lot of the programs. But, irregardless of all of this - what "sold" me was what I began to perceive as a "can opener". What attracted me to Windows (and by default - computers), was the vision of a tool which I could just turn it on, insert the program (can), and it would open it up and make the contents available - without (much) operator intervention (or years of programming skills). True this was - and still is - a pipe-dream, and one that is still years from fruition, at least. But, it kept me going, and also continues to be my mantra as I proselytize new users about the benefits of computers. After all, what is more likely to interest your buddy the outdoors-guy or grease-monkey - telling him about how he can access parts or equipment online, or possibly buy software to interface with his new GPS - or to sing them the praises of C++ or Norton Utilities?

Of course, my Achilles heal is being a perfectionist (ANAL, to those who can relate to the term), and it wasn't many weeks into my computer journey before I had to take control (or at least find ways to fine tune what programs I had). Programming is a natural outgrowth of this, because as my neighborhood Doctor/Computer Guru once told me: "After awhile you just want to learn how to roll your own". When the short-comings of the latest Vaporware become very real to you, and you want the program to do X, but it only does Y, you say: "There's got to be a way to...", and you're off. Finding the right language to do the job is perhaps the most important challenge.

If I was to admit my biggest fault, it would surely be my lack of focus - what would be my proclivity to become interested in EVERYTHING! It doesn't matter if it is graphics, games, music, astronomy, business, the stock market, home design, wine-making - no matter what field it is, I have an interest in it. Not only that, but as time has gone on, every one of these endeavors, interests, sciences and hobbies has seen an explosion of programs to exploit and assist - and many times dramatically improve - the way these fields are executed and enjoyed. 

My best example - from personal experience - is in the field of music. Now, anyone who knows me would never have trouble confusing me with Bono or Eric Clapton - I am not musical. As my Mother used to say of her own musical short-comings "I can't carry a tune in a bucket". But, don't ever think this has stopped me, or even slowed me down. My oldest daughter Naomi is a phenomenal pianist, so it wasn't long before I was working on incorporating the computer in every conceivable way.. My philosophy has been to try to connect as many peripherals as possible to my desktop (and later my daughter's). In the early 90's I bought my first scanner, and had a lot of experience scanning images, and later using OCR to scan and recognize text directly into Word - where I could then hypertext it and compile it as a Windows help file. So, the obvious next step was OMR (Optical Music Recognition), that allows you to scan sheet music into a program that recognizes the notes and saves the file so that it can be printed, but also becomes editable so that you can change the key of the whole work, upload to your web-page, play the file as MIDI through a sound card, or through a keyboard. MIDI itself is pretty amazing (its affects on the way we make and hear music are extremely pervasive) - like the ability for someone who either doesn't know how to write music, or hasn't the time to do it by hand - to play a keyboard, guitar, violin, or any instrument with a digital pick-up directly into a PC via serial port and record the notes on the staff. When finished, you click a button with your mouse and the music plays back through the keyboard. Within the last year, I have been able to get Naomi set up with Cakewalk, Overture, Midi Scan, and hook up her 76 key Yamaha keyboard so that now she can play, write, edit, mix, scan in, and play the final version back out again - all on headphones so her neighbors don't hear a thing.

I may only be an uneducated laid-off blue collar mill worker in northern Maine, but one of the ways I see computers really are having an impact is one that I hope to get involved in before I am too old to enjoy - astronomy. Not only have computers revolutionalized the sighting and tracking of telescopes, but with the newest CCDs and the software to take advantage of the "Go To" tracking and digitally improve images, much of the job can be done from the PC. What almost any person can now have on his desktop was only available to a handful of Universities only 10 or more years ago. And, on the other end of the magnification scenario - or more properly depth of field - is the same technology connected to high-end microscopes, which are fairly reasonable online right now.

I don't really mean to be preaching to the choir here - its not like I'm the first person who ever saw any correlation between computer advances and technology in general - but I really enjoy seeing what now appears to be an emerging  TAN, or Technological Area Network (my own term). Today, almost everything from new smart appliances and surveillance devices to weather data collection and home music studios and movie studios, from point of sale inventory system and engine analyzers to photo-quality high speed digital printing of your son winning a moto-cross race - everything can be networked either locally or globally. Now, all you have to do is go buy that can opener (hopefully with a couple gigs of Double Data Rate ram and a good burner)!