Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do. Unfortunately, due to ridiculous historical circumstances, computers have been made a mystery to most of the world. And this situation does not seem to be improving. You hear more and more about computers, but to most people it's just one big blur. The people who *know* about computers often seem unwilling to explain things or answer your questions. Stereotyped notions develop about computers operating in fixed ways – and so confusion increases. The chasm between laymen and computer people widens fast and dangerously .
This book is a measure of desperation, so serious and abysmal is the public sense of confusion and ignorance. Anything with buttons or lights can be palmed off on the layman as a computer. There are so many different things, and their differences are so important; yet to the lay public they are lumped together as "computer stuff," indistinct and beyond understanding or criticism. It's as if people couldn't tell apart camera from exposure meter or tripod, or car from truck or tollbooth. This book is therefore devoted to the premise that
It is intended to fill a crying need. Lots of everyday people have asked me where they can learn about computers, and I have had to say nowhere. Most of what is written about computers for the layman is either unreadable or silly. (Some exceptions are listed nearby; you can go to them instead of this if you want.) But virtually nowhere is the big picture simply enough explained. Nowhere can one get a simple, soup-to-nuts overview of what computers are really about, without technical or mathematical mumbo-jumbo, complicated examples, or talking down. This book is an attempt.
(And nowhere have I seen a simple book explaining to the layman the fabulous wonderland of computer graphics which awaits us all, a matter which means a great deal to me personally, as well as a lot to all of us in general. That's discussed on the flip side.)
Computers are simply a necessary and enjoyable part of life, like food and books. Computers are not everything, they are just an *aspect* of everything, and not to know this is computer illiteracy, a silly and dangerous ignorance.
Computers are as easy to understand as cameras. I have tried to make this book like a photography magazine – breezy, forceful and as vivid as possible. This book will explain how to tell apples from oranges and which way is up. If you want to make cider, or help get things right side up. you will have to go on from here.
I am not a skillful programmer, hands-on person or eminent professional; I am just a computer fan, computer fanatic if you will. But if Dr. David Reuben can write about sex I can certainly write about computers. I have written this like a letter to a nephew , chatty and personal. This is perhaps less boring for the reader, and certainly less boring for the writer, who is doing this in a hurry. Like a photography magazine, it throws at you some rudiments in a merry setting. Other things are thrown in so you'll get the sound of them, even if the details are elusive. (We learn most everyday things by beginning with vague impressions, but somehow encouraging these is not usually felt to be respectable.) What I have chosen for inclusion here has been arbitrary, based on what might amuse and give quick insight. Any bright highschool kid, or anyone else who can stumble through the details of a photography magazine, should be able to understand this book, or get the main ideas. This will not make you a programmer or a computer person, though it may help you talk that talk, and perhaps make you feel more comfortable (or at least able to cope) when new machines encroach on your life. If you can get a chance to learn programming – see the suggestions on p. – it's an awfully good experience for anybody above fourth grade. But the main idea of this book is to help you tell apples from oranges, and which way is up. I hope you do go on from here, and have made a few suggestions.
I am "publishing" this book myself, in this first draft form, to test its viability, to see how mad the computer people get, and to see if there is as much hunger to understand computers, among all you Folks Out There, as I Ihink. I will be interested to receive corrections and suggestions for subsequent editions, if any. (The computer field is its own exploding universe, so I'll worry about up-to-dateness at that time.)
Nelson, Theodor. 1974. Computer Lib: You Can and Must Understand Computers Now; Dream Machines: New Freedoms Through Computer Screens— A Minority Report. Self-published. ISBN 0-89347-002-3.
