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I've been around a while in the world -- my first experience with computers was as a kid sitting in the local Radio Shack for hours on end for several Saturdays in a row playing with a TRS-80 Color Computer, learning how to make it do this and that. Upon receiving my first computer for the following Christmas, I spent hours on end typing in BASIC programs to simply sit back and watch them run, only to turn the computer off and lose it all, as I had no storage device for quite some time. I soon replaced the TRS-80 Color Computer with an Atari 130XE, and learned that their BASIC language was a little different than TRS-80, but I was used to that since in high school, I learned programming on an Apple IIe.
My first PC was a Compaq Presario 433, and that was my first experience actually poking around inside the machine to install parts, add memory and change the CPU, replacing the 33MHz sx with a 100dx2 -- faster than it was supposed to run, but it worked. No cooling fan, so I just blew a Vornado fan on it 24/7 and never turned it off again. It would still be running today if I hadn't thrown it in a bathtub full of water.
I now use my friend's computer more than he does himself, and I'm about to start gathering parts to build my own system from the case up -- something I've been wanting to do for about a year now.
For one thing, I never read the manual. Everything I know was learned by trial and error. Windows is easy in that all you have to do is see something on the screen, want it, click it and it's yours. I've never destroyed a system by poking around in things I knew nothing about, though I've had to go back and fix things I may have adjusted with unexpected results. Overall, I've had great success in this method of trial and error exploration of Windows 3.1 and 95.
I don't use DOS like I did in 3.1, but why should I? In my opinion, anything that can be accomplished via a GUI that works just as well as DOS is fine by me. However, there's still a certain magic to closing Windows and typing in commands from the DOS prompt -- the clicking of keys instead of the clicking of mouse buttons.
My first PC was a Compaq Presario 433, and that was my first experience actually poking around inside the machine to install parts, add memory and change the CPU, replacing the 33MHz sx with a 100dx2 -- faster than it was supposed to run, but it worked. No cooling fan, so I just blew a Vornado fan on it 24/7 and never turned it off again. It would still be running today if I hadn't thrown it in a bathtub full of water.
I now use my friend's computer more than he does himself, and I'm about to start gathering parts to build my own system from the case up -- something I've been wanting to do for about a year now.
For one thing, I never read the manual. Everything I know was learned by trial and error. Windows is easy in that all you have to do is see something on the screen, want it, click it and it's yours. I've never destroyed a system by poking around in things I knew nothing about, though I've had to go back and fix things I may have adjusted with unexpected results. Overall, I've had great success in this method of trial and error exploration of Windows 3.1 and 95.
I don't use DOS like I did in 3.1, but why should I? In my opinion, anything that can be accomplished via a GUI that works just as well as DOS is fine by me. However, there's still a certain magic to closing Windows and typing in commands from the DOS prompt -- the clicking of keys instead of the clicking of mouse buttons.
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