Im sorry Kim, but I’m still thinking about the karaoke hand job game show.
AHHH! Flashback!
I wrote a couple of scripts for instructional VHS tapes in that era. It was computer-specific. My employer supplied knock-off manuals for DOS, Windows, DR-DOS and the like, as well as cheap software bundles. We wrote the manuals for these (Samsung?) 386 systems, so why not scripts?
I got to hang out in the studio during production and make sure the computer behaved.
Unfortunately the software bundle changed during production, so the “here is how you install your software” instructions changed. They went from four floppies to maybe a dozen. I don’t know how they handled that . . . voice over? A slide inserted in post?
I should digitize the tape!
Still using that keyboard.
Make fun all you want, but she had standing desks figured OUT.
Reminds me of my days working for New Horizons Computer Learning Center.
I’m not sure I get the joke, other than that first video was edited way down to make her seem fatuous. Without popularizers like Komando (who I believe has an unimpeachable background in tech) computers wouldn’t have made it out of the office.
Yes, Virginia, once upon a time people did have to learn how to use their computers. They didn’t have the knowledge inserted into their brains while still a fetus, like we do now. I know, I know, it was a silly time, with silly hair, and people were very stupid.
I am not saying she isn’t legit, but working in Sales is practically a crime against humanity for engineers.
I’ve never used scissors to cut and glue a paragraph in a letter.
Except for ransom notes, of course.
I followed your link, it seems she has a BS in CIS (her mother was a systems analyst at Bell Labs).
I had friends in grad school who had worked for IBM in mainframe sales in the 70s before returning to get their PhDs. If I remember their description correctly, IBM used to send sales people out in pairs, one would design and code on the spot while the other did the schmoozing. My friends liked the jobs except for the whole wearing-a-suit aspect.
BTW, I expect Komando could have taught whoever created the third sentence in the bit you quoted how to use a grammar checker!
All I can think is:
Each generation is destined to ridicule its predecessor’s attempts at either adapting to new tech or predicting tech of the future. Check out the 1954 vision of the home computer of 2004:
I took computer classes in the '80’s. Never once was the computer compared to a TV. Even in those days it was so much better than a TV.
I’m surprised people still fall for this over-10-year old Fark photoshop.
May I suggest you extract some smiles from this fantastic 1970s Life magazine article about a family installing a teletype at home. The photos themselves are amazing:
The giveaway was the last sentence: “with teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use”. Of course: FORTRAN didn’t really start to become popular until '56/'57.
// Not to mention the poor teletype melting in the foreground
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