When I was 11, i was the official tech support in the embassy of X in Y... (too embarrassing). The secretary had to redesign the template for official documents every day. No two documents ever looked the same. At least once a week the computer failed to boot and I had to reinstall win 95.
One evening I stayed in the office until the end of the day, teaching her formatting tricks in office 97. When we were done, she didn't save the file. Instead, she reached for the wall and yanked the power cable. She gathered her purse, handed me 5 (currency). She didn't understand the concept of saving files, or shutting down.
If she started on DOS, there was no concept of "shutting down." At the end of the day you just flipped the big red paddle switch on the side or front of the PC case.
Not saving? If she learned her secretarial duties using a typewriter, there was no saving. Once the document was scrolled out of the typewriter, that page was done. I could see someone like that using the computer the same way. Type the letter or document, print it, done.
I just want to say this post is amazing at giving plausible context to otherwise baffling behavior, thanks
A story I have is the time my father had set up a computer for my Grandma (Grandpa was very much a "no computers in the house" person until he passed) to give her something to do and people to take to. Naturally this means he had volunteered to become "tech support".
Early on there he was trying to help Grandma over the phone because for some reason no letters were showing up when typing on the keyboard. After an agonizing 45 minutes trying to figure out what was going on, he finally asks her to move the mouse to the box she wants to type in, click it, and then type. It worked! Turns out we took for granted the concept of input focus.
> If she started on DOS, there was no concept of "shutting down." At the end of the day you just flipped the big red paddle switch on the side or front of the PC case.
But... but... I diligently parked the disk every time !
I think my first HDD, a 130MB drive, had automatic parking.
It was a feature from so early on, that I never really though much about it except on university XTs, which were almost always just left on and walked away from, anyway
>no concept of "shutting down."
>using a typewriter, there was no saving
I find it interesting that shutting down and saving files is also a thing of the past, when you use e.g. an iPad, a MacBook, or another notebook and Google Docs.
There is auto-saving and hibernation or suspend mode.
One evening I stayed in the office until the end of the day, teaching her formatting tricks in office 97. When we were done, she didn't save the file. Instead, she reached for the wall and yanked the power cable. She gathered her purse, handed me 5 (currency). She didn't understand the concept of saving files, or shutting down.