The Dawning of the Computer Age:

A Personal Experience

By

Elton Camp

I didn’t touch a computer until I was over fifty years old, but that was mainly
because I wasn’t in the same room with one. Exactly when they first came on the scene
doesn’t particularly interest me. I heard vague rumors of some behemoth called Cray and
saw devices identified as computers in movies. They looked like huge boxes with
spinning discs of unfathomable purpose. From Star Trek came the idea that a computer
was some god-like entity that could answer almost any question put to it in a matter of
seconds. It even responded to human speech and produced a voice of its own. All of that
seemed far removed from any concrete reality that conceivably could affect my life
except indirectly and remotely. I never expected to use the device.

However, a new development caught my attention in a way that no electronic

contraption ever had. I encountered an electronic calculator. Another member of the
science faculty at our college obtained a government grant that, among other things,
allowed him to purchase the piece of equipment. None of the faculty had seen one.

It was astounding in its size, efficiency, and speed. Almost instantly, it did
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even division to several decimal places. Its
ability to calculate square roots was jaw dropping. The device did percentages with ease
and calculated and displayed the value of Pi to sixteen places. It had a memory for
number storage and retrieval. A box attached to its side even kept up with the number of
entries so that averaging class grades was a breeze. I’d always detested routine
mathematical calculations and welcomed it with delight. And most amazing of all, it was
tiny: only about a foot square and six inches thick.

Early Model Electronic Calculator

“Look, you can tuck it under your arm and carry it to another room,” I
demonstrated to another instructor. “It doesn’t even weigh ten pounds.”

Almost beyond belief was the fact that a machine with such power cost a mere
seven hundred dollars. What a bargain.
 Within a few years, I was able to purchase one at Sears that did all those things
and more for the paltry sum of sixty-five dollars. It was about eight inches by six inches
and an inch thick. How could a device that tiny accomplish so much? I was astonished.

A member of the science faculty dared include a calculator on a list of

requisitions. The college quickly deleted it with the objection that, “If I buy one for you,
I’ll have to get one for all the faculty members.” We had manual typewriters and that
was supposed to be all the technical support we needed. Anything beyond that was
ridiculous. If we wanted calculators, we could buy them personally. It wasn’t long
before ones that could as much as the original seven hundred dollar machine went for
under ten dollars and were little larger than a playing card.

During a faculty meeting a couple of years later, the college president made an
ominous announcement. He was considering placing the administrative functions of the
institution on a mainframe computer. None of us knew what that was, but it sounded
impressive.

“Now, realize that if we do this, we may have to cut back on other expenses,
maybe even employees,” he warned.

We heard nothing more about it for a few months. The AS 400 abruptly
appeared. It looked like a tall, blue box on wheels, but it must have been very important
since it had its own air conditioner as a supplement to the general climate control of the
college. No jobs were lost as a result. On the contrary, the huge computer generated a
gaggle of new personnel to minister its needs.

AS 400

We began to receive information printed on wide sheets of paper with a series of

holes on each side. They came from the blue box and the growing computer staff that
generally remained aloof from other employees as if they were a royal priesthood for the
IBM god. But we liked what we got.

“I have to admit that we get information way faster,” conceded the college dean
who had originally been lukewarm about computerization. Up to that time, he had
carried the entire class schedule in his head, a task he was glad to relinquish as the
growing enrollment increased the difficulty of the feat.
 By the time the faculty had adjusted to business matters being handled
electronically, an announcement came: the college has purchased a computer for personal
use. “Come see it,” invited the director of computer services.

The device had its own private office near the mainframe. Access was only upon
approval of the techs and then one of them had to accompany the faculty member to
unlock the door and provide stern instructions not to leave it unlocked even for a second.
At least it looked a bit familiar. The cream-colored computer resembled a small
television set atop a box and had a keyboard in front. It bore the words, “Apple 2e”
which justified the room being designated as the “Apple Room.” Having seen it, we
were invited to make appointments to actually try it. Only a few responded.

Apple IIe

After a few weeks, I summonsed the courage to see what all the excitement was
about. As I sat in front of it as the tech demonstrated how to turn it on, I eyed the
keyboard apprehensively, wondering which inappropriate punching of keys resulted in
terminal meltdown of the infernal contraption. The worker set in motion an inane game
called “Little Brick Out.” I learned how to manipulate the controls, but saw no
application to my work for the costly device. We weren’t being paid to play foolish
games. It was a waste of time. I left in disgust.

Having been rebuffed by the indifference of the faculty, the computer people
backed off. Time passed. We began to hear of a marvel called word processing. What
that meant, we weren’t quite sure, but a couple of the younger secretaries knew how to do
it. The every-ten-years Self-Study for reaffirmation of accreditation came along and the
massive document entered a single computer in the Occupational Building. Committee
members were astonished and pleased to see the ease with which spelling could be
checked, changes made to words and sentences, and entire blocks of material moved
from one location to another in a flash. Still, it seemed nothing any of us would
personally use.

Typewriters were still the standard for document production. They weren’t very
satisfactory, but the device was a familiar one that we had used from our student days.
As far as the faculty was concerned, the appearance of White Out was a major
technological triumph. We could paint out typos rather than producing messy erasures
with crumbs falling onto the keys. A white tape appeared that did the same thing if we
placed it against the paper and retyped the error.
 Manual Typewriter

“This is just wonderful,” an English teacher said. We were all impressed with the
new way. There seemed no limit to what inventors could produce.

Mistakes too major to white out often were typed over with a series of the letter
“x” and the work continued. It wasn’t quality work, but most everybody did it with
material for internal use. Only documents to go off campus were carefully proofed and
laboriously retyped until near perfect. Anything else was just too much work and far too
time consuming.

Major revisions were another matter entirely. When it was necessary to update,
add, delete, or rearrange the order of material, there was nothing to do but start from the
beginning and retype the entire document.

All too easily, the inattentive typist could miss the approach of the bottom of a
page and key too far down. Failure to heed to bell and manually slide the carriage over
and the page down resulted in text too far to the right. If a sheet of paper in progress had
to be removed from the typewriter, it could never be replaced so that the newly typed text
aligned properly. To center headings required laborious calculations and back spacing
from the center of the page or just eyeballing it with uncertain results.

The college announced a training session for faculty in word processing. Because
we didn’t want to seem resistant to progress, quite a number responded. We entered a
room filled with IBM computers and a few printers. The person in charge was one of the
business instructors rather than a member of the support staff. There was none of the
smirking arrogance we had encountered to that point. Such demeanor on the part of other
members of the support staff wouldn’t have been tolerated for a minute, but somehow,
experts in computer use were granted license to insult us at will. Better instruction made
all the difference.

The teacher explained that we would learn to use PFS Write, a word processing
program with little power, but one that might prove useful in our daily tasks. There was
no pressure or reproach for our slow move to state-of-the art. Each of us received two
large, flexible diskettes called “floppy disks” since they really could “flop.” One read
DOS and the other PFS Write.
 Old Style Floppy Disc

The computer had only enough internal information to be turned on and to

recognize instructions from the diskettes. We inserted the DOS diskette and heard
whirring sounds as information appeared on the dark screen in green letters. It was time
to remove DOS and insert PFS. As the session continued, we learned to scoot words
across the screen, delete text at will, add bolding, move entire paragraphs with a few
keystrokes and function keys, and cause heading to center automatically. The computer
even checked for spelling and typographical errors. The completed practice document
looked perfect in every way, something I’d never been able to accomplish with a
typewriter.

“Now are you saying that this will continue to be available for us to use?” I asked
doubtfully.

“Yes, it will,” the session’s leader affirmed. “Anytime classes aren’t scheduled,
this room is open for faculty use.”

The director of computer services, who had been watching the proceeding from
the side of the room, smiled in satisfaction. Some of us were hooked and she knew it.

This was something terrific and useful. The computer age dawned for me
personally. I never used my office typewriter again. Little did I suspect how much more
the computer would change my life.

Over the next couple of months, some faculty honed their skills in the new
technology. . The dot matrix printers were loud, with a sing-song rhythm as the printing
head moved back and forth across the page. The print quality was excellent. Unless a
person looked closely, he didn’t notice that the letters were composed of tiny dots. When
printing was complete, it was so easy to tear off the strips with holes at each side and then
to rip apart the pages. The quality of the finished product was far beyond anything we’d
been able to produce. It was actually professional looking.

We were experiencing a leap forward. Most of the faculty assumed that nobody
took note of our efforts to move with the times, but we were wrong. After I’d regularly
been using the classroom computers for a few weeks, I got a knock at my office door one
evening about going-home time. It was a smiling support staff person with a cart loaded
with a computer and printer. I was to have my own equipment since I’d demonstrated
that I’d use it, she explained. I was astounded, but accepted it eagerly. Certain others of
the faculty were similarly rewarded. Those who failed to embrace the new technology
were quietly allowed to become increasingly irrelevant. Over a relatively short time,
computer skills became expected for initial employment and advancement for college
faculty and also in many other occupations. Adapt or die was the unstated fact of life.
All but a few, mainly those who were at the point of retirement, embraced the new
reality.

I wasn’t ready to be turned out to pasture and so determined to keep up with the
rapidly changing circumstances. It wasn’t always easy. When I mastered PSF Write,
along came a new version, Professional Write.

“Why would I want that?” I exclaimed when offered the program. “What I have
will do anything I could possibly need.” I was wrong. The newer version was far
superior.

Word processing raised the expected standard and at the same time greatly
increased productivity at the college. Easy revision meant up-to-date handouts. Tests,
rather than being used for years, could be progressively improved and kept in tune with
current lectures. College publications became far more timely, accurate, and useful.

Without justification, some of the faculty, especially the older ones, came to
regard me as the resident computer guru, especially after I was anointed with the title
“assistant dean of instruction.” It wasn’t true. I knew only slightly more about DOS
and word processing than they did, but I had developed a workshop to teach word
processing with Professional Write to beginning faculty. I knew how to relate to them on
their level and explained matters simply and patiently. Because of that, they assumed a
level of competence that I didn’t possess. I was supposed to answer any question or deal
with any problem related to DOS or word processing. I wasn’t equal to the task, but
managed to maintain the illusion. They needed that kind of back up to feel comfortable
and, hey, it never hurts to make oneself appear indispensable to superiors.

A member of the nursing faculty rushed into my office in a near panic. The
program was undergoing its reaffirmation of accreditation with the National League of
Nursing. One of the requirements was production of a book-size self-study document. It
was nearing completion after nearly a year of work.

“It’s gone,” she muttered with horror. “I was working with the self-study and it
suddenly disappeared. I’ve done everything I know to get it back. It just isn’t there
anymore. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Can you come look?”

I thought I knew what had happened, but said nothing until we reached her office.
She pointed desperately at the computer that had, in her view, just swallowed months of
work. As coincidence would have it, I’d had a similar experience only a few days before
which led to my discovery that Control-N opened a new document, completely hiding the
one in use. The command was a toggle, so that repeating it brought back the original
document. With the positions of those two keys, it would be easy to make the command
inadvertently. I decided to have some fun with her and perhaps enhance the
misconception that I was a computer master.

I directly addressed the computer. “You have taken a document that you have no
right to,” I intoned as if it were a living entity that could hear and even fear me. “Render
it up now,” I ordered in the manner of a Pentecostal preacher commanding a healing.
Instead of using the traditional “laying on of hands,” I hit the keyboard, with both hands,
aiming for Control with the left and “n” with the right. The “lost” document instantly
flashed back onto the screen.

“There you are,” I said quietly and turned to leave her office without a word of
explanation. I didn’t get away with it.

“Wait a minute,” she demanded. “How did you do that?”

The jig was up. Since she had asked, I felt obligated to reveal the “secret” of my
seemingly mysterious power over the infernal machine. I was a bit disappointed. It
would have been fun to keep her in the dark for a while and to allow her time to repeat
the incredible story to the other nursing faculty.

Then came the astonishing power of WordPerfect. At first, I thoroughly detested

the program with its blue screen, white print, and multitude of keyboard commands.
Even worse, what appeared on the screen wasn’t what you got upon printing.

Early WordPerfect Screen

“It’s Shift-this, Alternate-that, Control-something else,” I complained to a

colleague who had recently come from another college where the program was in use.
“How can anybody keep up with so many variations? I’ll stay with Professional Write.”

“Try this,” he replied as he handed me a paper template to fit over the keyboard.
“What you need is written out. Give it a chance.”

The template did help, but it was one of the secretaries who came to my rescue.
“Run it with macros,” she advised. “I’ll show you how.”

From that time onward, it was all WordPerfect and its vast power. Soon, I
couldn’t imagine anything better. Few of the faculty were ready to give up Professional
Write for the new program so I didn’t promote it.
 Shortly, I began to hear of something called “Windows.” I had no clue what it
was, but it created a big stir in some quarters. The college provided an introduction to
Windows for faculty, but unfortunately it was presented by a computer science major.
The person gave instructions rapidly and in a condescending manner as if to say, “I know
something you don’t know.” The seminar was worthless. I set Windows on the shelf as
not worthy of my attention.

By that time I had a computer with a mouse, but the device seemed of no value. I
used it as a paperweight.

One afternoon, one of the techs came uninvited to my office. “I’m here to install
Windows on your computer,” he said in a tone that allowed for no refusal.

“Go ahead, but I won’t use it,” I remarked with disdain. “I don’t see anything it
can do.”

Over the next few weeks, I occasionally opened the program and used the mouse
as I played around with it, but as far as I could see, it did nothing helpful. Only with the
issue of the first Windows-based version of WordPerfect, did the light dawn. The thing
was used to operate programs. Nobody had ever explained that simple concept.

“Why didn’t somebody tell what Windows was for?” I demanded of the head of
computer services. “We thought you knew,” was his puzzled reply. Techs nearly always
assume a level of competence that others didn’t have.

WordPerfect ruled as king, being almost synonymous with word processing, for
years, but how the mighty fell when Microsoft Word appeared. It was already loaded on
most new computers and was customized for Windows. Nobody could resist the
Microsoft freight train and we soon made the change. I still have a degree of nostalgia
for WordPerfect and use it on rare occasions, but its day has passed.

Word processing was the hot issue for most college faculty, but it was just the
start of the advances brought by computers. The term “Internet” was one I began to hear
with increasing frequency. “What in the world is the Internet?” I wondered, but figured it
was best to keep quiet. After all, I was the resident computer expert as far as part of the
faculty were concerned. I had an image to protect.

Discovery of the existence of search engines opened a whole new world of

knowledge. The first one I was pointed toward bore the disgusting name “Dogpile.”

“Why would they give it a name like that?” I asked one of the actual experts in
computer use. “It’s like naming a restaurant ‘The Greasy Spoon,’ or ‘The Green Fly.’ It
doesn’t make any sense.”

He didn’t know, but made an alternate suggestion. “Some like the one called
Google. You might want to try it.” The rest is history for me, and for millions of other
computer users. Google and the Internet gave unprecedented, instant access to an almost
unlimited volume of information and pictures.

For a constantly changing discipline like biology, it was a goldmine. One year’s
lecture notes might do for thirty years of students for history teachers, but not in the
natural sciences. The Internet was the key to new developments before they appeared in
the textbooks. Almost any question could be answered from its vast reservoir of facts.

After retirement, I returned to be a member of the college’s adjunct faculty. The

lecture rooms then featured a wall-size screen, raised and lowered automatically, a
computer that projected to that screen, and a device that projected opaque objects to the
screen or even my own face, or members of the class. Rather than write on the board, I
typed and the words appeared, any size of my choice, on the screen. If anyone had
predicted such technology when I started teaching in 1962, I’d have dismissed it as the
ravings of a lunatic. The quality of classroom presentations underwent a metamorphosis
similar to that of document preparation years before. Far greater quality of presentation
of up-to-date material, complete with pictures was easily accomplished. What might
have been tedious became relevant and exciting.

I’m glad that I was able to participate in the early stages of the use of computer
power in an academic setting. It laid the foundation for my use of it in private life now
that I am completely retired from college work and writing a newspaper column, short
stories, and books.

Despite its very real potential for misuse, the dawning of the computer age is a
welcome development to me. Who knows what the future holds?