My romance with computers.
It all began years ago, in what today’s kids would term ‘the hoary past’.
Right through my scholastic and collegiate career, I had never so much as laid my eyes on a computer. Our college Principal, Rev. Nicolau Pereira, who had done his P.Hd at St. Louis University, Minnesota, some times did refer to computers, but that was ‘en passant’ so to say.
My first brush with computers came in the mid seventies, when I went on a visit to Bombay. I have a friend whose brother works at Tata Consulting Services (TCS) who worked at computers. At that time, I felt that I was speaking to an Einstein as he tried to give me a kind of explanation on how computers worked. He invited me to visit his office at the Sterling Theatre building, to see what a computer looked like. This of course took some negotiations with his higher ups, who wanted to make sure that I was not a species of industrial spy!
When I reached his office, I saw people working at huge things like old electric typewriters with TV screens in front of them, which emanated mysterious blips and burps and radiated light. He then took me to another room on an upstairs floor where there were several metal boxes, not unlike the almirahs which are gifted as bridal gifts in India, but with glass fronts in the top half. Huge spools somewhat like tape recorder spools of old, whirred about in tandem, each reciprocating the movements of the other, but in reverse direction. Sometimes, they moved slowly, but at other times they spun furiously. All this was very well, but went nowhere to help me understand a computer.
In those days I was quite an activist of the All Goa Secondary Teachers Association (AGSSTA). So once when we were agitating for our demands, we camped in hunger strike outside the then CM’s (Mr. Pratap Sinh Rane, Chief Minister of Goa) Official Residence at Altinho, Panjim., and the agitation was called off at the instance of Mr. Rane, we were called to speak to him in his office. There promises were made to meet all our demands and he also promised that all schools would be given computers. Many moons and many governments would pass by before this came to be a reality!
In the mean time, my sister who lives in the U.K. gifted me with a Psion micro computer. This was more like a personal diary, with most of the functions resembling those of a present day mobile phone and a glorified calculator. It did have a word processor, spread sheet, and had several useful ready made programmes that one could buy like a flight planner, chess, scrabble and so on. These had to be acquired from England and were quite expensive – so no go.
In course of time, a friend who had borrowed Rs. 2000/- from me gave me a used Sinclair Spectrum Home Computer and a Phillips tape recorder (probably obtained from the flea market). The Sinclair worked by connecting it to a TV and the Tape recorder. The TV functioned as the Video & sound output and the tape recorder much as the memory, like a floppy drive. I had a few pre-recorded tapes which contained interesting programmes like building electronic circuits and of course a few games. The computer it self functioned with keys which had two or three functions each which could be activated by pressing the key or doing a shift+key press or pressing the control+key. One could do elementary programming in BASIC. Unfortunately, the computer was not tropicalised and so died a natural death during the first monsoons. Repaired once at a princely sum of Rs. 700.00, it peacefully passed away the next monsoon and was laid to rest,
My next encounter was when Greg D’Silva, from Moira, filed on behalf of my school, Sacred Heart High School, Parra, an application to the local MP Mr. Harish Zantye to provide computers to the school under a Central Government scheme. We got three computers and a dot-matrix printer. These computers were DOS based and used arcane languages like WordStar and Lotus 123 which were the fore runners of MS word and Excel. When the computers were installed, I tried to get them running, but with mule like stubbornness, refused to do my bidding. All I could get was the DOS prompt and any thing I typed evoked the response “File not found”. So annoyed and frustrated was I that I rushed to Panjim in the evening and bought a book on PC’s, After reading through half the night, the next morning, I could only open Lotus. On the third day, I could open WordStar and it was like Columbus discovering America.
Mere typing of letters was not satisfying. As Head of the school, my idea was to computerize our pay bill. Preparation of a pay bill then involved manually filling up various columns for each of the staff members like name, designation, qualifications, Basic Pay, DA, Additional DA, CCA, Medical Allowance, HRA, then various fund deductions. This was a tedious procedure and engaged the clerical staff and sometimes the teaching staff for two days. So I had the bright idea of computerizing the bill. Initially, the result was a manually typed form much the same as the clerks were doing at present. This made me think of trying to find a way to reduce the amount of mechanical work involved. On doing some research, I figured out that allowances were a percentage of the Basic pay and so were the deductions, though some had a fixed value. So the formulae were figured out and they were laboriously typed row wise, for each staff member. After some time there came a we realized that one could paste the formula into several cells and from then on it was a piece of cake – a matter of just typing in one line and pasting it for the other staff members. I had the pleasure of computerizing pay bills for several schools in Goa gratis.
During this time, my cousin who had heard about our computers visited me with a pirated set of 22 floppies to install MS Office 3.1 (the precursor of today’s Excel). This changed my computing life and greatly made things easier. Later on we were assigned more computers with better versions of Office. I must mention that “Goa Sudharop” a group devoted to giving computers to schools, also pitched in with used, discarded but serviceable computers from America.
But the most enjoyable time I had was when tinkered with the software of the computers, formatting them, fighting virii, loading all kinds of software, trying my hand at graphics etc. Two breaks came when I discovered CorelDraw and PageMaker. These software programmes opened a new vista in graphics and type setting. My experience with PageMaker came almost by chance. I was appointed Editor of the Goa Headmasters’ Association bulletin “Communicator”. Not being satisfied by its it present lay out and waste of space, I decided to type the articles and use fillers for better space utility a lá Readers Digest. The first time I gave our printer, Kamat Offset at Mapusa, the manuscript done in MS Word, he was disdainful and asked me to do the next magazine in PageMaker as he could the print it directly. The programme was installed on my computer but I did not know how to use it although it was a windows based programme. Fortunately for me, I was deputed to go to New Delhi as a representative of Goa Bharat Scouts and Guides Association. In Delhi, I purchased a book on PM6.5. I read it all the way to Goa, cocooned in a blanket in the upper berth of the train. By the time we got to Goa, it had learnt enough of PM6.5. The look of consternation and surprise on the printers face was reward enough for my efforts. Of course, I do not claim that my effort was flawless, but the printer had to do only minor changes. I had the satisfaction of seeing Communicator come out in a better avatar.
Today, my romance with computers has become a full fledged love affair. Specially after retirement, since I have lots of more time, I can indulge in my fancies and do a lot of what I want to do. My regrets – I never learnt touch typing, Java, and the other web programming languages. My greatest pleasure and triumph, I can do all this without having gone to computer classes!
It all began years ago, in what today’s kids would term ‘the hoary past’.
Right through my scholastic and collegiate career, I had never so much as laid my eyes on a computer. Our college Principal, Rev. Nicolau Pereira, who had done his P.Hd at St. Louis University, Minnesota, some times did refer to computers, but that was ‘en passant’ so to say.
My first brush with computers came in the mid seventies, when I went on a visit to Bombay. I have a friend whose brother works at Tata Consulting Services (TCS) who worked at computers. At that time, I felt that I was speaking to an Einstein as he tried to give me a kind of explanation on how computers worked. He invited me to visit his office at the Sterling Theatre building, to see what a computer looked like. This of course took some negotiations with his higher ups, who wanted to make sure that I was not a species of industrial spy!
When I reached his office, I saw people working at huge things like old electric typewriters with TV screens in front of them, which emanated mysterious blips and burps and radiated light. He then took me to another room on an upstairs floor where there were several metal boxes, not unlike the almirahs which are gifted as bridal gifts in India, but with glass fronts in the top half. Huge spools somewhat like tape recorder spools of old, whirred about in tandem, each reciprocating the movements of the other, but in reverse direction. Sometimes, they moved slowly, but at other times they spun furiously. All this was very well, but went nowhere to help me understand a computer.
In those days I was quite an activist of the All Goa Secondary Teachers Association (AGSSTA). So once when we were agitating for our demands, we camped in hunger strike outside the then CM’s (Mr. Pratap Sinh Rane, Chief Minister of Goa) Official Residence at Altinho, Panjim., and the agitation was called off at the instance of Mr. Rane, we were called to speak to him in his office. There promises were made to meet all our demands and he also promised that all schools would be given computers. Many moons and many governments would pass by before this came to be a reality!
In the mean time, my sister who lives in the U.K. gifted me with a Psion micro computer. This was more like a personal diary, with most of the functions resembling those of a present day mobile phone and a glorified calculator. It did have a word processor, spread sheet, and had several useful ready made programmes that one could buy like a flight planner, chess, scrabble and so on. These had to be acquired from England and were quite expensive – so no go.
In course of time, a friend who had borrowed Rs. 2000/- from me gave me a used Sinclair Spectrum Home Computer and a Phillips tape recorder (probably obtained from the flea market). The Sinclair worked by connecting it to a TV and the Tape recorder. The TV functioned as the Video & sound output and the tape recorder much as the memory, like a floppy drive. I had a few pre-recorded tapes which contained interesting programmes like building electronic circuits and of course a few games. The computer it self functioned with keys which had two or three functions each which could be activated by pressing the key or doing a shift+key press or pressing the control+key. One could do elementary programming in BASIC. Unfortunately, the computer was not tropicalised and so died a natural death during the first monsoons. Repaired once at a princely sum of Rs. 700.00, it peacefully passed away the next monsoon and was laid to rest,
My next encounter was when Greg D’Silva, from Moira, filed on behalf of my school, Sacred Heart High School, Parra, an application to the local MP Mr. Harish Zantye to provide computers to the school under a Central Government scheme. We got three computers and a dot-matrix printer. These computers were DOS based and used arcane languages like WordStar and Lotus 123 which were the fore runners of MS word and Excel. When the computers were installed, I tried to get them running, but with mule like stubbornness, refused to do my bidding. All I could get was the DOS prompt and any thing I typed evoked the response “File not found”. So annoyed and frustrated was I that I rushed to Panjim in the evening and bought a book on PC’s, After reading through half the night, the next morning, I could only open Lotus. On the third day, I could open WordStar and it was like Columbus discovering America.
Mere typing of letters was not satisfying. As Head of the school, my idea was to computerize our pay bill. Preparation of a pay bill then involved manually filling up various columns for each of the staff members like name, designation, qualifications, Basic Pay, DA, Additional DA, CCA, Medical Allowance, HRA, then various fund deductions. This was a tedious procedure and engaged the clerical staff and sometimes the teaching staff for two days. So I had the bright idea of computerizing the bill. Initially, the result was a manually typed form much the same as the clerks were doing at present. This made me think of trying to find a way to reduce the amount of mechanical work involved. On doing some research, I figured out that allowances were a percentage of the Basic pay and so were the deductions, though some had a fixed value. So the formulae were figured out and they were laboriously typed row wise, for each staff member. After some time there came a we realized that one could paste the formula into several cells and from then on it was a piece of cake – a matter of just typing in one line and pasting it for the other staff members. I had the pleasure of computerizing pay bills for several schools in Goa gratis.
During this time, my cousin who had heard about our computers visited me with a pirated set of 22 floppies to install MS Office 3.1 (the precursor of today’s Excel). This changed my computing life and greatly made things easier. Later on we were assigned more computers with better versions of Office. I must mention that “Goa Sudharop” a group devoted to giving computers to schools, also pitched in with used, discarded but serviceable computers from America.
But the most enjoyable time I had was when tinkered with the software of the computers, formatting them, fighting virii, loading all kinds of software, trying my hand at graphics etc. Two breaks came when I discovered CorelDraw and PageMaker. These software programmes opened a new vista in graphics and type setting. My experience with PageMaker came almost by chance. I was appointed Editor of the Goa Headmasters’ Association bulletin “Communicator”. Not being satisfied by its it present lay out and waste of space, I decided to type the articles and use fillers for better space utility a lá Readers Digest. The first time I gave our printer, Kamat Offset at Mapusa, the manuscript done in MS Word, he was disdainful and asked me to do the next magazine in PageMaker as he could the print it directly. The programme was installed on my computer but I did not know how to use it although it was a windows based programme. Fortunately for me, I was deputed to go to New Delhi as a representative of Goa Bharat Scouts and Guides Association. In Delhi, I purchased a book on PM6.5. I read it all the way to Goa, cocooned in a blanket in the upper berth of the train. By the time we got to Goa, it had learnt enough of PM6.5. The look of consternation and surprise on the printers face was reward enough for my efforts. Of course, I do not claim that my effort was flawless, but the printer had to do only minor changes. I had the satisfaction of seeing Communicator come out in a better avatar.
Today, my romance with computers has become a full fledged love affair. Specially after retirement, since I have lots of more time, I can indulge in my fancies and do a lot of what I want to do. My regrets – I never learnt touch typing, Java, and the other web programming languages. My greatest pleasure and triumph, I can do all this without having gone to computer classes!
