Business Management Blog

We need to start forgetting things. And we need to start soon. We computer users spend a lot of time learning new things: new operating systems, new troubleshooting techniques, new hardware, new software, new versions of old software, and so on. This is part of what keeps things exciting and invigorating, of course. There’s always more to learn, to remember, to try. Nothing in technology stays the same for long, so it’s always a scramble to keep up with the latest developments.

In the end, we spend a good deal of our putative computing time trying to learn new tricks–and that’s not always easy for some of us old dogs. In my case, for example, I’m limited by the fact that I have only a finite (and steadily decreasing, apparently) number of functioning brain cells. It’s obvious that the reason it’s difficult to learn new technology is that our brains are cluttered with old technology.

For example, I still know how to program a VCR. I will never again program a VCR. I may never again even see a VCR. I simply don’t need to know this, and yet I do know it. Why is this still taking up space in my brain? Similarly, I remember perfectly well how to test and replace a vacuum tube. Do I need to know that? Of course not! Why would I want a vacuum tube? And where would I find one of those tube-testing stations that for years were standard in every drugstore and hardware emporium in America?

There’s almost no end to the list of technology-related stuff I still recall but for which I now have absolutely no use. I still remember how to change a typewriter ribbon; double-clutch a car; tune the antenna on a CB radio; thread a reel-to-reel tape recorder; place a tone arm on a vinyl record without scratching it; retouch a film negative; use a cassette tape-equipped answering machine; rebuild a carburetor; use a slide-rule to calculate the volume of a room; copy a document using a “wet” photocopier; and adjust the hue, tone, and contrast on a color television set. In the meantime, I can’t for the life of me remember how to add a network connection in Windows XP without looking it up each time. All of these skills of dubious value are using up brain cells; frankly, I’m in no position to be wasting them.

Of course, my brain is also full of obsolete and irrelevant (but amazingly persistent) facts related specifically to older computers; naturally, these serve only to confuse me when I’m dealing with newer systems: Why should I be expected to recall how to insert an em dash in Microsoft Word when I still know the embedded dot-codes we used to invoke formatting in WordStar? How am I supposed to burn CDs and DVDs when I can still remember how to connect and search a Commodore 1530 tape drive? Why is it that I can remember exactly how to set an environment variable in a DOS batch file, but I have to consult a manual in order to invoke a simple Office macro?

Why should I be expected to remember how to connect my laptop’s modem, when the last real modem I used came with an acoustic coupler? And how can I be expected to remember which one of my four hard drives contains a specific application when I still vividly remember “notching” the reverse side of single-sided diskettes so that we could save data on both sides? This technique worked roughly 90% of the time, which meant that there was a one-in-10 chance that when you went to look for it, your Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet would have been reduced to random ASCII characters.

Then again, there was already a one-in-10 chance of that happening, apparently based either on your proximity to any large magnets or on the phase of the moon. Hmmm . . . so, does that mean that, considered together, there was actually a one in five chance, overall, of your spreadsheet self-destructing? Rats. I guess I’ll have to go dig out my slide rule, because I can’t remember how to use this fancy new calculator they gave me.