How did people learn to control computers?
Were there a lot of books to help them discover the power of computers? Where there special classes which people could attend and learn more about computers that way?
How did they learn about it?
Nope, before we had the internet, we shared hardware, skills and knowledge, and a lot of programs and code on diskettes. It was very social, as you had to real life visit others and stuff like that, and since cars were not usual for young people to have, it was all done on bicycles, so it was very healthy to be a computer nerd... but the Internet solved all of those problems.
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Google "Sneakernet"
I think you mean before the web. The Internet evolved from the old ARPANET that started in 1969 when the first two nodes came online, linking Stanford and UCLA. Most major US colleges had internet connectivity by the mid 1980s.
I am probably older than most people on this site. I started learning about computers in the early 1980s, when I was 10. It is funny, nowadays if you were 10 and just started learning about computers, you would be the least tech savvy person on the planet. But back then, I was always the youngest person. I was lucky my dad worked for NASA, and they had a Computer Club. Every Wednesday night my mom would drop me off at NASA and I got to learn about computers from the engineers at NASA. They would give out programming assignments to solve using BASIC. It was a lot of fun.
A few years later when I got my first modem, BBSs were the main way to learn and exchange information, and meet people with similar interests. And yes, books were a good source for learning too.
I actually completed my Computer Science undergrad degree five months after Mosaic was first released. Mosaic was the first real web browser. My college had the internet when I arrived as a freshman, and like today it was an excellent source for learning. Only you had to use things like gopher, anonymous ftp sites, and Usenet newsgroups to share and learn information.
we had bbs.
And Here I was starting to think I was the oldest person on this website. You've got me by at least a decade lol. Nice to know it's not all 16 year olds.
Anyway, what he said. Pretty much covers it.
Cool story , man.
It always amazes me how the youth of today takes for granted something that didnt exist not to long ago.
The first computer I ever played with was windows 3.1 and I learned it by using manuals that you could find in book stores and the windows manual that came with the 13 floppy disks it took to install the OS.
Other than that it was trial and error.
There were actually lots of book published on all the different software available, so you pretty much read through and figured out things as you went along. Of course university have classes on this stuff since the inception of computer.
When I was a kid around '93 or '94 I think it was there was a cnet tv show early saturday morning on one of the cable networks I used to watch. This was right around the time the world wide web was becoming available to people outside of academia/government and there were all kinds of interesting new things going on with computers and the internet.
lol
Yes, it was far more social then.
I so old. I remember having to read a book in order to use my computer. Mostly alot of trial and error.
BOOKS
I learned myself English as a kid, because all software and reference works on computers were in English. There was also no software distribution except for the large enterprise market. Only large industry, banks and universities had computers at that time. I really got into computers and technology when I was about 8 years old. At 11, I built a supercomputer by definition by soldering 17 Motorola CPU's in series. The biggest problem was always getting the hardware. Software was not a problem, at that time, there were no copy protection mechanisms, and people just copied diskettes at work or university, it was just a matter of getting in touch with the right people. The newest hardware was always prohibitively expensive, so that was not an option, primary source of hardware was what banks threw away, that was premium loot, because they threw away pretty new stuff, or bankruptcy auctions, or things "that fell out the back of a lorry". It was very important to rub elbows with the right people. People that worked with computers and had access to the latest and greatest software were gods back then. I wrote to several US universities to get information, and always kept writing back until I got in touch with people that could help me further (I couldn't call or email, international calls were way too expensive, and the internet was not accessible). That got me a recommendation letter from Stanford that I used to apply for a BBS connection in my country, because at that time, the telecom company was state-owned and they would only give data connections to people with specific academic credentials, which are hard to come by for a 9 year old. I couldn't log in much because the telephone costs were huge, and my parents wouldn't allow it, but I was one of the first 100 people in my country to be connected to the Internet, and although the language was brutal by European standards of that time, the people on the Internet back then were actually extremely helpful. Because there was no software distribution in my country, I had access to copied entertainment software and the latest and greatest system software from the US, and that was worth a lot to trade with others, to analyze, to learn, etc... I was always more orientated towards hardware than software though, I loved to build stuff (well, I still do), so by the time I was 15, I had built several computers, basically from scrap parts, had built a maintenance robot that I could remote control from school by hacking into the HAM antenna in my neighbour's garden, and had set up a "fixer" business (repairs of all kinds, DJ'ing, PA services with self-built equipment, etc...) to finance the expensive technomania. I got into a free radio station because that was the only was to get a broadcast license to avoid going to jail for experimenting with digital long distance remote control. I got into linux pretty early on, and had switched to linux completely by university, and once I was in university (I was 16 by then), I had access to all the things, it was like landing in hardware and software heaven.
It was a great time! People were much more relaxed at that time. I remember going to the US embassy as 10 year old to ask for the military airplane documentation, which at that time were distributed to the public, and it was some cool stuff, very nice printed material with a lot of very cool photos. I just pulled on the sleeve of an MP at the entrance, and he was so friendly, I got a drink and a snack while he paged some people to give me the grand tour of the Embassy and get me a lot of documentation, model airplanes from General Dynamics, Lockheed and NASA, so much I could hardly carry it. Now, you wouldn't even be able to approach the US Embassy without being yelled at. I think that is what I miss the most right now, after 2000, everything became so high strung, people became afraid to communicate, people are not proud anymore in what they do, and far less motivated.
Despite the Internet, I'm convinced that it's much harder now to learn about cool stuff than it was back then.
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i learned about computers from messing with my family's windows 3.1 box. that had a dual layer cpu. sadly i dont remember who manufactured it. i was the fist in the family to be able to install things with dos prompt. and i was the first and only one in the family to build a pc years later. as far as i know in my circle of friends and coworkers i am the only one that can and will repair computers and has them last for a few more years before being relegated as junk and replaced. the only education i have received in computers is what i learned on my own with trial and error. granted i will probably never be able to code a program but i can fix most of the hardware breakage, and clean up nasty viruses that would normally leave a computer in need of a reformat.
#232323 ; line-height: 24px; background-color: #f9f9f9 ;">Despite the Internet, I'm convinced that it's much harder now to learn about cool stuff than it was back then.
#232323; line-height: 24px; background-color: #f9f9f9;">This. Because Everything is just a google search away. You don't have to learn how something works to repair it or replace it anymore.
Yup, most people mistake search results for answers, and mistake answers for temporary satisfaction by knowing what to buy where.
In the old days, people were frustrated with themselves because they didn't know something or how to do something yet, now, people are frustrated with others because they don't know the answer immediately and without them having to make any kind of effort... it's weird how these things evolve.
I got an internet connect in the early 1990'ies, i always used the internet to learn about computers, back then then allot of nerds would meet on the Usenet in the comp or sci newsgroup over nntp. I often spend the equivalent of 500$ / month on telephone costs. I had to be a night-person because using the internet meant blocking the only phone in the house, because non-computerphile people wouldn't understand that gossiping over the telephone was less important than being connected to the world.
But like Zoltan said lots swapping floppy disks & strapping desktop-computers to bicycles & motorized bicycles (moped), and meeting in sheds & community centres.
Also you could buy books or pester university professors to get their scripts, also if you bought a computer you often got multiple telephone-book sized handbooks that contained allot of useful information.
Oh, man. Remember when manuals actually existed?
It went from receiving a phonebook with everything to:
"What's that. You got a new part? Here's a small pamphlet of information loosely related to it."
Word of mouth, experimentation, and lots and lots of reading.