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My mother was a similar "computer convert". She was a secretary with a large
southern insurance company when they decided to automate. She was the head
secretary at a branch office, so it fell to her to learn to use the "durn
thang", then to teach everyone else.
Since the computer they installed used DOS, she had to learn something about
command line interfaces and paths as well as learning the commands of her
software. After months of grumbling and insisting that she wasn't smart
enough to understand "that infernal machine", suddenly it all clicked for
her.
Why? Well, Mother has raised six children, and with tots she has endless
patience. It suddenly dawned on her that in some ways a computer was just a
mechanical toddler. It has a very limited vocabulary and will do exactly
what you tell it to do -- not what you meant it to. Voila! She was off and
running, and now her home computer (an 8086) is her little buddy. She even
supplements Father's retirement income doing newsletters for various
churches and community groups in the afternoon.
