I suddenly realize what old people feel like. Maybe its not that they’re too old to understand new electronics but that they’re too wise? And maybe a little past their learning curve too.
But this idea came to me as I was turning on my old PS2 today for a long time since a long time and I remembered the first time I got it. I was probably around 12 but I had been playing computer games for ages and ages and I assumed the rules of a computer would carry over to a console. Well they didn’t.
For starters I thought that the screen the PS2 opened up to was the same as one’s desktop. Thus it made sense to me that everything I needed to do could be opened up from this menu. I can’t quite remember what I was trying to do but I kept opening up the browser trying to click the option I wanted and activate it. I think it was playing a DVD, so I would check and try to click until I got so annoyed that I couldn’t open it. Thankfully I was resilient and probably tried restarting the system and moping so that it auto started. Whatever is the case I wasn’t completely Internet literate yet so I don’t think I googled it.
The second particular instance I recall was trying to quit a game. I was playing Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone (or Jet X2o both were one of my first games) and I decided I was done. Well, I saved like a good little kid who’s used to their computer crashing every few minutes when they play their Nancy Drew games and then proceeded to scour the game for an option to quit and go back to the browser screen. Alas I couldn’t find it and having to look away and wince, I shut it off from the switch.
But these thoughts stemmed from my knowledge of years of playing on the computer rather than my lack of knowledge of consoles. Had I never played games on the computer before I’m not sure what my actions would have been. I might have read the manual (pft, as it) or I might have given up in exasperation. Chances are that If I was still the kid I was and not some strange anti-me who avoided all electronics I would have kept with it until I figured out how it worked all the same. I might just have done like I did when I first needed a playstation memory card and played for hours not knowing what to do next only to risk loosing all my data (I think I re-played the beginning of Final Fantasy VII at least 6 times before I actually go a memory card. Even tried just not dying. Heh, that worked out well.)
I think these thoughts were all born from my watching of singing in the rain the other day where they switched from silent movies to movies with sound. I know the change had to be huge but it never occurred to me all the changes. I recall talking to my dad about how every year he’d wait for the wizard of OZ to show on TV and how people were so awed by the burst of colour as she entered OZ.
I’ve been mulling over this all night (with some garlic cheddar Jalapano biscuits, mmm~) thinking back to my first technology experiences. When I first realized computers were easy to hook up, when you had to restart a computer for the keyboard you just hooked up to respond, playing with my friend’s old ipod mini and thinking it was so thin, thinking an ipod nano would snap it was so thin, when I first had easily accessible internet that didn’t make those annoying noises with every webpage, and my first e-mail account with Hotmail. I feel compelled to write down a in depth account of all my electronic experiences as something new comes out so that I can give it to my grandkids to read and laugh at my excitement over something that will become so commonplace or even dated by then. I think it’d be fascinating to have my own grandmother’s first thoughts on turntables or cassette players, don’t you?
And so fittingly as I write this I have my all time favorite comedy duo on in the background in one of their old black and white movies: Abbot and Costello, Pardon my Sarong.
overaverageundergrad 