Experiences of your parents FIRST computer?

Delvis said:
I've shown my mother how to load up a favourite before, so I let her try...so she did...

Then we closed IE down...So I said, go on then you try...She responds:

Mother: "Wheres the favourites button???"

Me: You have to open Ie first mother...

Mother: Oh yes! oh...I can't see it...

Me: Top left mum :rolleyes:

Mother: Oh yeaaaaaah! One more time

Me: Ugh!
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Hahahah, exactly! :D

I'm still living at home but when I go away in one of the coming years it will be such a nightmare. When a router goes down or whatever, they can't handle it themself and will call me :D I see myself going back home every week to handle the problems. Why can't they just remember something about computers when you tell them? :p

I just thought about it, probably our kids won't have these problems when they are our age. I think we can handle ourselfs with computers pretty good :)
 
At least you don't have to cope with parents who 'think' they know what they're doing :(
People who think they know computers are by far & away the hardest to get things working properly.
Soon after you'll find that something has been changed because it 'should' be like that, and they wonder why nothing works anymore.

I fix it, and then I get him telling me that it's wrong, farcical.

-Leezer-
 
I know exactly what you mean leezer3. When I worked on tech support I could take a braindead Robot through the steps to fix their pc but someone who thought they knew what they were doing was a pain in the arse.
 
Built my dad a pc years ago. Still uses it most nights.

The trick is to teach them enough basic info about email/web and hope they learn the rest themselves. He does ask me for help now and then.

The main thing to me is that I never got him a PC from say Dell where it comes with so much ******** software. Built it my self and now and then I run hitman and update xp etc.
 
Gimpymoo said:
Now, I am not sure if I have done the right thing or not but I have convinced my mother who is in her 60's to purchase her first computer.

It seemed a great idea at the time, being able to share family photos with her, the social aspect for herself and the thought she may join a beginners "silver surfers" course at the local college. It all seemed great. Then it hit me.

What happens when it all goes wrong?

My question to the forum is in 3 parts

1. When your parents got their first computer, were it a pleasent experience for yourself?

2. Did they give up on it and leave it in the corner to gather dust or did they perservere?

3. If they persevered, how long did it take them to become confident when using the computer?

Thanks all.

Wish me luck for the next year.. it will not be pretty :(
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I think dad a ZX spectrum or something similar as the first computer in the house, it read software off audio tapes, but I'm a bit too young to remember much about it, and I dont think I used it, I was mainly into lego...

1. Their first PC was a P75 thjey got with win 95 on it back at the end of 94 I think. Had a 1gb hard drive which was huge at the time. It was great, I loved it, its the thing that got me into PCs

2. Mum has barely ever touched any of their PCs, but dad spends a lot of time on it (or did when I moved out around 5 years ago, so I presume he still does).

3. I wouldnt go as far as to say he is confident. He can do thew things he needs to do on it easily, but he is always terrified of breaking it and never tries anything new without 6 months of careful research. For example, he recently bough a maxtor onetouch for backing stuff up off his laptop, but he told me around a year ago he was getting one, it only took him about 10 months of research. Accordingt to mum he was on the net nearly every night reading reviews and how tos and specs etc, before finally going back and buying the first one he had seen anyway. He should have more confidence cos I'm sure he's not actually that bad...
 
Was the worst worst thing i had done to build them one.!

every 5 mins from the day they got it was, phoning me *how do i turn it on, whats does this do.? how do i do that.? Ohh whats the regestry.?*

LOL

:D
 
Parents - Computers Ho Ho Ho Hahahahahahaha

1 I worked on IBM 370 mainframes and invited my dad in to see the computer room where i worked - Hypnotised him with the status lights on the front end of the 148

2 He's never had a computer and I plan to keep it that way

3 It took 5 years for him to master the video recorder (well it did have a remote!!)

My dad can fix any car - jury rig any mecanical device so it works - knows the conversion sizes for spanners from AF to MM, but when you put something that has "Electrickery" in it in front of him, he's like a rabbit in headlights.

I used to work on a support desk and know the frustrations - I trained myself to be patient, non patronising and conciderate to non techies - BUT FAMILLY CAN JUST GO AND SHOVE (*&^!& !_+£(Y!£ !^*!"£ !%$$() )* THEIR !*^£%
 
My dad invented Unix (ok over the top statment but spent 30 years developing it with a variety of companies including sco before that died in the uk) so iv ALWAYS had a computer (nearly 20 years of them kicking about). The first one was an Amstrad (you know the one everyone said needed a fan even if the bits that got hot wernt in the screen or something). It had dos 1.0!

He showed me some of the coolist pc's back in the day including a dual pentium pro work station in like 94-95 (probably before they were officially released) from hp that was far far too good to play discworld on :D

My mum on the other hand can only be summed up with the best pc quote of all time
"dont press space"
"why not?" im like 6
"caps lock is on!"
"so"
"you'll do a double space!"
lets just say is was ammused
 
Going to live in Germany in a couple of weeks after the summer in the parental home. I've been going round sorting out various computer-related issues for the family, but even so my parents will probably be on the phone before I get to the airport!

My mum doesn't even attempt to use the PC, so fortunately no tech support queries there. My dad was the one who introduced me to computers, but I don't think he took to the GUI revolution very well. He invariably uses the most obscure and long-winded way of doing things, e.g. typing URLs in the Google search box and restarting the browser at random intervals when he just wants to go to a new site :confused:
 
I made the mistake of buying my parents a computer, nothing flashy, just a barebones and some other bits and pieces for web browsing etc.

Now i have to visit them at least twice a week to rectify problems that my dad has caused, and i get a phonecall at least once a day from my dad saying that the anti virus has brought up some message or S&D had said something.

A couple of weeks ago i really lost my temper and shouted down the phone "stop looking for porn then" to him, lets just say my boss wasnt impressed, nether was my mother who was sat next to my dad at the time conference stylee.

All in all i would say purchasing them a computer was the single worst decision i have made in my life....EVER.

They dont have a clue, and are not even interested in learning anything about them.
 
my parents got an ibm aptiva for my homework when i was 10
it was used mainly for doom and heretic :D

my parents make an effort to use their PCs but they also make an effort to use me as their 24/7 technical support center
 
Mattus said:
He invariably uses the most obscure and long-winded way of doing things, e.g. typing URLs in the Google search box and restarting the browser at random intervals when he just wants to go to a new site :confused:
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SNAP

typing whole URLS into google too, not just lazy kind of half searching for things like I do :(
 
Its my wife and kids.
For the past ten years its been:
Them " I cant find such-and-such document"
Me: where did you save it?
Them: In Word.
Me: I've told you a gazillion times you cant save it IN Word!!

Also
Them: Err, how do I get on the Internet?
Me: First open the browser
Them: what's a browser?
Me: I've told you a gazillion............................
 
thepedster said:
Maybe get them laptop? smaller and more easily used in a way? 15-17" screen I'd guess.

I'd imagine mine sitting in their armchairs typing away more than I could sitting a at a great big 'hulk' of a desktop gathering dust in the corner?

But mine are both pretty nifty, apart from calling the monitor a 'screen' and navigating the web in the sloooooooooooooooooowest way possible, use tabs is what I keep telling them, and press minimise to desktop more! I put it on quicklaunch for a reason, it's the best windows button!
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A monitor is a screen?
 
footman said:
Its my wife and kids.
For the past ten years its been:
Them " I cant find such-and-such document"
Me: where did you save it?
Them: In Word.
Me: I've told you a gazillion times you cant save it IN Word!!.
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My mum does this all the frigging time as well.
 
My Parents... well they can do ebay & web browsing... and Games, scrabble, flash games etc :rolleyes:

My Grandparents on the other hand, Less savvy with the web, as they live on a canal boat, but my Grandfather, who's about 70 has become quite into digital photography. He's scanning a lot of the old family photos, and taking even more with his camera. Archiving to CD & External HDD, putting his favourites onto a USB stick. I am really quite impressed.

Whenever he comes over, he brings a notebook full of questions for me to answer, and generally takes on board the things I say, He even seems quite interested in why/how it does what it does.

One thing i have noticed though; is stickers on everything! He's got little notes to remind himself what to do when. His External HDD has a sticker telling him 'My Computer, F: Drive', so he knows how to access it, etc. This might be a good way to help any troublesome parents.
 
thepedster said:
it's the way they describe things as being 'on the screen'

They don't refer to a website they found a specific item/price for example but will tell the salesman in John Lewis 'Well we had it on the screen at home for £xxx' for example.
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never a truer statement has been made, my dad does it now because he sincerely believes that shops have to beat every web price.

As an example: The Parents were looking for a new television, he had seen a Vistron 37" LCd job on a famous etailers site, my mother and him went off to a high street electrical retailer and started haggling with the poor sales chap over a Panasonic LCD using the immortal words "Well on our screen at home the same telly was £289.00"

I can only imagine the hard time the poor sales bloke had trying to get get out of dealing with them.
 
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