Several years ago I heard an album by Bill Cosby about a football team. It seems that this team?EUR??,,????'???s opponents had players that were all much bigger and stronger than they were and therefore the players were always getting hurt. The coach would have to start with a new team every week.

He got very good at teaching football and would always start with the basics. ?EUR??,,????'??This is a football?EUR??,,????'???.?EUR??,,????'?? After the L.A.T.E. Show in Las Vegas in November, I realized that there was a possibility that I might be assuming that you, the reader, had a higher level of understanding than you really did. So I determined that I should cover some of the ?EUR??,,????'??basics?EUR??,,????'?? as related to computers for the readers that weren?EUR??,,????'???t with us from the start.

Why should you be interested in computers in the first place?

I can sense some of you out there saying to yourselves, ?EUR??,,????'??Why should I read on, I don?EUR??,,????'???t have a computer and don?EUR??,,????'???t plan on getting one.?EUR??,,????'?? The answer to that question is that although you don?EUR??,,????'???t currently use a computer, some of your competitors do and you better at least understand what a computer can and cannot do to help a Landscape Architect do the job. For instance, if you are bidding on a big design job with a tight deadline, it would help you to know that unless the other design firm is already setup and has been using the system for quite some time, the fact that they indicate that they will be using a CADD program to prepare the design will not have any positive impact on their ability to do the job and in fact may detract from it until they can become proficient with the system.

What can a computer do?

Now, what can a computer do and, just as important, what can?EUR??,,????'???t it do? Computers are simply machines that take human instructions for doing a task and accomplish that task at a speed and accuracy level far above that of humans. There you have it in a nutshell. All the hype and hooplah about computers boil down to that! Speed and accuracy are the major benefits that computer users receive. Said another way, you can do manualIy anything a computer can do, it just may take the rest of your life and you?EUR??,,????'???ll never be as accurate in the end.

How does a computer work?

I?EUR??,,????'???11 probably be accused of heresy for this, but I don?EUR??,,????'???t think you really need to be a computer expert or programmer to use the machine. What?EUR??,,????'???s more I don?EUR??,,????'???t think you even need to understand what is going on behind the scenes inside your computer. I have no idea how my television works, I don?EUR??,,????'???t even want to know. All I want is to be able to watch ?EUR??,,????'??Slap Maxwell?EUR??,,????'?? on Wednesday night. What I do have to know is how to set up the machine, tune it to the correct station, and adjust the volume.

I think the same goes for 95% of all computer users. You don?EUR??,,????'???t need to know that the 80286 chip can address 16 megabytes worth of memory or that it can run at 8, 12, 16 or 20 MHz. Al1 you need is to be able to operate the machine and get the job done.

How hard to learn is it?

Remember when you were learning to drive. It seemed like there was a million different things to keep track of and watch out for. You had to adjust the seat, fix the mirror, check the gas gauge, fasten your seatbelt, put it in park, etc. Learning to use a computer is a lot like that, but once you get the feel of it, it isn?EUR??,,????'???t all that difficult to improve your ability and it will seem like second nature before long.

What happens when I turn it on?

Let?EUR??,,????'???s assume you have just bought and had installed a new IBM or IBM Compatible micro-computer system and are standing in front of it, you have a floppy diskette in the floppy disk drive labelled A:, with something called DOS on it. What next? You reach over to the on/off switch and turn the machine on. After a short time, the screen clears and then up in the left hand corner the following is displayed on the screen:

Current date is Mon 01-01-1980

Enter new date (mm-dd-yy):

There is a flashing line following the colon. The computer is asking you to supply the correct date. It is even showing you how to type it in! At this point you simply type the month (as a two digit number), a dash, the day of the month (numerically), another dash, and the two digit number representing the year. As you type this at the keyboard, it is displayed on the screen as follows:

Current date is Mon 01-01-1980

Enter new date (mm-dd-yy): 12-07-87

After you have typed the year, you press the Enter key (sometimes called the Return key). Now a similar sequence will occur with the time. Once again you enter the correct time and press the Enter key.

The computer then displays an A followed by the greater than sign (A >). The flashing line is apparent just to the right of this sign. At this point the computer is saying, ?EUR??,,????'??Ok, I am ready, what do you want me to do??EUR??,,????'?? Depending on the task you want to do, you would not type a command to start the instructions involved with that task. Here is where you have to know the difference between the gear shift and the turn signal. Once you have learned those differences however, you?EUR??,,????'???re off and running.

Forward into the Fray

Most applications programs on micro-computers today, whether it is word processing or computer-assisted design, show you some representation of a work area on screen and you use commands and/or menus to accomplish the task that program was designed to do. As an example the command you would issue at the A> to start the Word Perfect word processing program is WP. The command to start AutoCad is ACAD. Sound simple? It really is! Once you understand some of the ?EUR??,,????'?? basics?EUR??,,????'?? the rest comes easy.