Tag Archives: computer

HP Left Me Behind Years Ago

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Long before Hewlett Packard was making computers the average person could afford, HP made the finest calculators in the world. HP calculators used a method called, “Reverse Polish Notation”.

As strange as the name was, the more complex the formula was, the easier it was to input on a Hewlett Packard Calculator. Not only were those calculators the finest in the world for complex mathematics, they were also almost indestructible.

The only ‘real’ computer in the eyes of professionals was an IBM Desktop Computer. There were many other companies making computers, but only IBM had the words “Business Machine” in their name. Who else could dominate the early business computer market without having the words Business Machine in their name?

Almost anybody with a basic understanding of electronics, computers, and a garage were placing themselves in a position to sweep the new Home Computer industry. That is how Apple got their start. A little electronics knowledge, access to hardware, and some assembly skill were all that was required. Many electronics hobbyists were in the computer making and selling business before they knew it.

If IBM could sell a computer for five thousand dollars, they could sell you the same computer for three thousand dollars minus the big name on the label. Around that time,  the term “Plain Vanilla” arrived on the PC scene from the finance industry for the name of these no-name computers.

While I was plodding along on my mere twenty-five hundred dollar Plain Vanilla PC, I was secretly craving a real IBM PC. I remained a faithful HP  calculator consumer.

Around that time HP entered the home computer market in a fashion. Hp Computers were built like their calculators. The world might end, but your HP Computer would keep running. Drop it off your roof, and plug it in and your HP Computer still worked. But it was expensive!

In an effort to stifle Plain Vanilla computers, the big players, HP being one, started a new trend. Proprietary. Whenever you bought a big name brand, you were chained to the company. If you wanted more memory, bigger hard drive, new processor, you paid through the nose from the BIG manufacturer whose computer you could not live without. This drove the cost of long term ownership of these computers further out of my price range.

Those beige Plain Vanilla Computers were making headway, and the proprietary strategy further isolated consumers from the big name Computer makers. Eventually the big companies pretended to compete with Plain Vanilla computers.

This is where I became a HP fanatic. Out of the blue, there was a HP computer I could almost afford. It was more than plain vanilla, but instead of saying “xyz’s” on the label it said “Hewlett Packard”! The goodness of the earth came into my life at last! I owned an HP computer!

That first HP desktop was everything one could ever want in a computer. Then I passed it on to family and bought a newer HP computer. Thus started the trend that made HP lose my and thousands of other consumers business, driving down both price and quality of home computers in the process.

Every HP Computer model I upgraded to started having problems about a year later. The CD reader/writer would fail, the memory would die, the hard drive would crash. The first two times this happened I was sure it was a fluke. The third HP computer I owned started to die, and I let it die without throwing more money into it. I bought another HP Computer to replace it. After all they were the best company in the electronics industry, so why wouldn’t I buy HP?

Then I wised up. HP had changed their business model and I did not notice. Bottom end computers were one-third cheaper and lasted longer than the pricier HP Line. I finally did what my smarter computer enthusiast friends did a few years before me. I quit buying HP and started buying no name computers.

Now HP announced they are giving up on the home computing industry. I read HP claims there is not enough money in low end computers for them to bother with. I am totally indifferent to this news. For me HP quit making computers many years ago. In the intervening years  they succeeded on their reputation and their marketing wizardry. Today, the HP computer uses I know say once again HP computers have improved and once again are among the best computers in the market place.

Today computers are commodity purchases. The software is once again running behind the hardware, trying hard to catch up. Plain Vanilla generic computers are making a few dollars a sale times millions of sales each year.

When the software catches up, the computer market will once again boom, but it may be to late for the Giants of the industry. They move to slow, and do too little, too late. Long live HP, and other companies like them who created an industry, took all they could out of it, and moved on.

Hp and other companies who went down the path they did have made me grow up as a consumer. Whenever a company large or small wants me to jump on their bandwagon, I will be looking carefully to see what the wagon is made of, hot air and hype, or real value.

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Best of intentions do not get things done

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Getting things done is almost impossible at times. Not the Getting Things Done people use as a self management system, but creating any kind of real change at any level, be it school, work, or home. No matter how big your sphere of influence, you rarely have enough influence to change anything that really makes a difference if it involves any sort of organized group.

For example, I was a computer tutor volunteer at one time for a specialized community center. I had six to eight ‘students’ who would show up weekly for a two hour class. Most of them held job positions in their group, but knew little to nothing about computers except whatever their job was. So as the appointed volunteer in charge, it was my job to help them become computer literate. A simple task should not be difficult one would think?

I developed a schedule, and a training matrix of sorts, that would help them learn their way around Windows and eventually Office programs, but it was flexible enough that there was room to go over past lessons, and incorporate them into new learning. That is about the best any instructor can hope for. The classes went well for three or four sessions. Then the Director of Education for the group, decided that there should be some sort of testing at the end of each session so the progress of the folks in attendance could be evaluated. Would I mind making a simple test for each module completed?

A week after that the attendees were being referred to as students. As students, as long as I was now instructing them on using notepad and wordpad, couldn’t I add a little grammar instruction to my lessons? After all they were working with jokes and stories, and they were only practicing cutting and pasting to make the stories make sense, a little grammar should be easy enough to add.

The next week I was called into the Director of Education’s office. What nerve I had using that kind of language in this environment! I had to claim ignorance, as I was unaware of what sort of language I had used that was so offensive. I was handed a print out, with a highlighted word on it. It had been a joke that was to be cut and pasted until it made sense. Among the twelve or so lines of text, the word ‘crap’ was highlighted. I had to claim ignorance, as I did not know how such a highly offensive word could have possibly worked its way in a joke and exposed to a class of adults.

The next week, I had another meeting with the Director of Education. Wouldn’t it be possible, as long as people were showing up for class that I could take half the class time for formal instruction on English grammar, spelling, and basic math? I had to draw the line here for a couple of reasons. In the first place, the ‘students’ were writing on a low elementary school level, and needed more instruction than I could provide. Secondly, I knew little about formal grammar myself, although my math was okay. I was over ruled and given a grammar book to make grammar lesson plans from.

There are miracles in the world, and I was lucky enough to experience one of them. I told the ‘students’ that next week we would be doing half the session on formal grammar, and math. The next week I was an instructor in an empty room. The next week was exactly the same, empty. I went to the Director of Education and explained I had no students. I was told it was okay, if they wanted to learn to use a computer they were going to learn English and math also. After two more weeks, I resigned as computer instructor, English, spelling, and math teacher.

I thought this was a great example of trying to make a positive change gone wrong. Both the Director of Education, and I wanted to make a difference. The people who showed up for instruction had a willingness to learn to a point. Given enough time, they would have learned basic grammar, and spelling skills, and perhaps some basic math as their computer skills improved and they started exploring the internet. As it turned out, now computers are something other people use, and they have little use for.

At times we are like the Director of Education. We have the best intentions but we stifle any possibility of change before it even has a chance to start. Usually it is because of we do not do, but more often it is due to what we say, or do, because we try too hard and push people away. I think as people, we do not mind being slowly led, but we do not care much to be directed.

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