Simpleton Explores Microcomputers

It’s easy to forget how much computers have changed over a relatively short. time. A book I found in my old room at my parent house, “Simpleton Explores Microcomputers,” helped me get some perspective.

I don’t know exactly when it’s from, but it’s certainly early eighties. Possibly 1983 or 1984.

It explores the computers that are available at the time and what it’s like to own one. One of the most telling aspects is that it’s written for people who have never owned, possibly used, a computer.

It starts with a little history (that’s still, by and large, relevant) and moves on to talk about some of the jargon users will come across and the problems they might be subjected to.

Hard drives are rare beasts that come in 5, 10 or 20Mb capacities . There are even these things called “floppy diskettes,” though most users will be saving their data on cassette tapes. (Before MP3s there were CDs. Before CDs there were cassette tapes. Ask your dad.)

Later on, its British bias shows through when it asks which of the major brands of machine you should buy, the BBC Micro, the Apricot, the IBM PC or the Torch.

There are four pages dedicated to each computer. I love the detail here, where they explain what can be plugged in (such as the cassette unit) and what the CAPS LOCK key does. It talks about the ports and the power switch. But absolutely nothing about the software!

The final section discusses the relative merits of dot-matrix and daisy wheel printers. I still remember by own 9-pin dot-matrix printer. It was slow and noisy. I think I’ll stick with my ink jet, thank you.

I scanned the whole thing and put it up on Flickr if you want to read all of the book. And if you like that, you might also like Digital Retro (no connection, I just think it’s a great book).