My dad was introduced to computers through his boss, who worked of Duncan Aviation in the Avionics department. Duncan Aviation actually has two patents for improvements on the gyroscope system as the result of his research. He first had an Apple I, then got an Apple IIe, on which my dad learned how to code a few simple things in DOS. They would sit a transistor radio next to the computer, just on radio frequency, to see if it was following a command and working or not. His boss programmed some interesting things on that computer. He got a Teletype (which is actually a brand name for a teleprinter, an electromechanical typewriter that could send and receive messages like a fancy telegram system, or analog email) after the Lincoln airport upgraded and connected it to the Apple IIe so he could print letters he typed on the computer, since home printer weren't available until the 80s. Since the teletype worked so much slower than the computer, he some how managed to create a buffer so the teletype printed at the right rate. He also bought a chess program for the computer that had 10 levels you could play it on. It was almost impossible to beat at levels 8-10. My dad remembers playing the game at level 5 or 6 and if he was about to win, the game would cheat. The screen would flash almost imperceptibly and when it came back the pieces were in different places, so you just really couldn't win a chess game against this program. My dad’s boss also wrote what was basically a robo-call program, where the computer would call people for a business or whatever instead of a human. At the time it apparently wasn't legal to call people with a computer, so they never pursued it. The next time my dad used a computer frequently pre-2000 was when he got one for home which ran Windows 95 then upgraded to Windows 98.
My dad said he never really had any negative attitudes towards computers, because they made his job much, much easier. He’s been a coin operated machinery (pinball, pool tables, juke boxes, cabinet games, etc.) technician and operator for quite a while so he’s been using and fixing computerized mechanisms since the switch over from electromechanical in the 70s. Pinballs used to be entire electromechanical, then there was a period in the 70s where they switched to partly electromechanical and partly computerized, and then they were entirely computerized. Cabinet games like Pac-Man were entirely computerized. To fix the old electromechanical pinballs, you had to know what was wrong and then pick a place to start fixing it. The computerized ones could usually run self diagnostics so it would tell you what needed fixing. It might not always be right, but it was better than guessing. Fixing the computerized games basically boiled down to component switching—just replacing the hard drive or the monitor or whatever part had a problem. There was minimal programming involved that the operator did, but when they did they could program whatever they needed to on the display instead of using dip switches. At first there were alphanumeric displays, which only made a letter or a number, then they switched to dot matrix displays which could show simple animations as well. There were plenty of tricks for working with the computerized games. The CPU chip in most game machines was removable, so when static electricity built up in the machine and it started acting wonky, they would take out the CPU chip and just hold it for a while so the small electric current in the hand would clear the chip out. There was a way to program a theft deterrent into a touchscreen, but the game might decide that it was being stolen at any time, and to fix it there was one chip that could be switched backwards in its socket, run for 2 seconds (3 seconds and it would fry the chip), and then switching it back the right way would clear the chip.
One of my dad’s favorite things about using computers now is the fact that if his computer is acting weird, he can go on another computer, look up the problem and find a way to fix it. He’s still in the coin-op business, which is even more computerized than it was before. There are new coin-op machines, especially juke boxes, that connect to the internet. They have way less moving parts than previous computerized machines, and the only maintenance is replacing parts when they need it. So, computers have served to make his life easier with every generation, which, as we’ve discussed in class, is their purpose.
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