Welcome to Tape Number 1, Computer Kindergarten.
On this tape, you'll soon learn the basics of computers and how to use DOS and Windows.
Sit back and watch the Computer Tutor tapes at your own pace.
To find or review a certain topic, just check the index card and quickly go to just the right place on the tape.
Use the on-screen locator window to fast-forward or rewind to just the right place.
Now here's the Computer Tutor herself, Kim Commando.
Welcome to Tape 1, Computer Kindergarten. I'm Kim Commando.
And if you're like most people, you may be looking at a computer the same way a caveman did who saw a wheel for the first time.
It looked good. A lot of people are using it. But what is it anyway? What does it really do?
Watch my tapes and you'll be in the driver's seat with four wheels underneath you.
We cover a lot of topics, so keep the lesson card handy that was packaged with the tape.
The counter on your screen now is like a highway mile marker.
The number matches the one on the lesson index card.
When you want to review a subject or move forward to see another, just match the number on your television screen with the number on the card.
And I want you to keep in mind throughout all our lessons that it's not important for you to know exactly how a computer works to use one.
I mean, you know what this is. It's a VCR. And with it, you can play movies and tape your favorite shows.
How do you do it? You press a button. And what happens when you press the wrong button?
Does it blow up? No, you just press the right button again. And it's the same thing with a computer.
Now, the computer you're learning about is called a personal computer. One person, personal computer.
And they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. But basically, there's two types.
What you see here is called a laptop computer. And you can carry these around. You also hear them called a notebook or portable computer.
And then there's also a desktop computer that can sit on top or underneath the desk.
Now, no matter what the size the computer is, you can do all kinds of things with it.
Like draw charts and keep pictures, your budget, your homework, your office work.
Anything that you can do on paper, you can do on a computer only easier and faster.
Now, this is the computer. And it's covered up by a case.
But that shouldn't bother you because you can't see inside a TV, stereo or VCR either.
This is the back of the computer. And we plug all the other parts of the computer hardware into the back of the computer.
Now, hardware is kind of a special type of term. It's all the parts of the computer that you can touch.
Now, you also need something called software that makes the hardware go around. But we'll see that later.
Let's start at the top with the monitor. It looks like a TV, but it's not a TV.
And you can't use it as one without some expensive extra gear.
You also hear a monitor called the screen or the display. On almost every monitor, there's two buttons underneath.
Now, you can adjust these so that you can see the characters on the screen better.
On the other side of the monitor, there's normally two cords that come out.
One goes right into the computer and you can tell where it goes by looking at the edge of it and trying to match it here.
Where does it go? Well, it's easy to see. It goes right here where it says video and you just push it in there.
Now, the other cord outside the monitor needs to give the monitor power just like a TV.
But I don't want you to plug it into a regular socket. Get one of these, a surge protector.
It protects your computer from power surges because of storms or what have you.
And they're not very much money and it's like an insurance policy.
This is the computer keyboard. And with it, we type just like on a typewriter, but there's some more keys.
On the right hand side is what's called a numeric keypad, which is great for when you need to type in a bunch of numbers.
It's like an adding machine.
You use the keyboard to tell the computer to do things that are shown on the monitor.
The keyboard, guess what, needs to get plugged into the back of the computer too.
Now, it's easy to see where this one fits. There's only one place.
It goes right here where it says keyboard and you just put it right in there and you're all ready to go.
Now, also, aside from a keyboard, a lot of people are using these nowadays.
And this is called a mouse. It kind of looks like a mouse, but it doesn't replace the keyboard.
It works with the keyboard. And where does this go? You got it.
It goes right in the back of the computer too, so you can use it.
Where do you think it goes? Right here where it says COM1.
And then what you do is just put it in there like you do with the monitor.
See how easy it is? I mean, they all kind of work the same.
Now, what good is having all this information inside the computer if you can't get it out and put it on paper?
So what you need is something called a printer.
Now, there's all different kinds of printers out there,
but it all depends upon how good what your work looks like when it's out on paper,
whether or not it prints in color and how much money it is.
Now, you've probably figured out by now that we need to connect certain parts to the computer in order to use them.
And guess what? There's a cable for this too, but you knew that. I know you did.
And if you look at the edge of the cable or the back of the cable,
now this one's not hard to figure out because most of the spots are already filled in.
But this is really easy because it says LPT1.
That's really short for Line Printer 1.
And all you do is just put it in there like you did the others.
Now what? We got another side of the cable left.
We got to put that in the printer, which is a piece of cake.
On the back of the printer, you normally see where this cable goes to.
And again, it's easy for this. All you got to do is just match it up.
Take a closer look and you can see that it will fit in real nice.
Then you just put it in there in the back of the printer.
Then see these metal clips? That's it. That's all you got to do.
Now there's one more thing inside the computer you should know.
It's all those numbers that you hear thrown around in computer advertisements and in conversations.
The 286, 386, 486 Pentium.
Well, all it is is it tells you how new the computer is and how much money it costs.
If you're an engineer running the latest and greatest in graphics and engineering software,
maybe you need a 486 or Pentium.
If you're just doing word processing, a 386 or even a 486 is just fine.
Buying a computer is just like buying a car.
Both are a mode of transportation or get you from point A from point B.
But with a computer, you need to buy the software first and then the hardware.
I put this computer together here.
The monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, and this is the computer right down here.
If you take a look, these are called disk drives.
The disk drive on the top is called the A drive.
The disk drive on the bottom, well, it's the B drive.
You put floppy disks inside the disk drives just like video tapes go in a VCR.
Can you tell which one goes where? It's easy.
This is a five and a quarter inch disk and to put it inside the disk drive, you just slide it in.
It's that easy.
This is a three and a half inch floppy disk and it goes in the same way.
You may have noticed something about that five and a quarter inch floppy diskette.
It looks like something took a bite out of it.
Well, it didn't. This is called the right protect notch.
And when it's covered up, you can look at the information on the disk, but you can't touch it.
And I'm sure you figured out that the three and a half inch floppy disk probably has the same thing,
but you don't have to use stickers.
See this tab? Just move it.
And when the hole is open, you can look, but you can't touch the information on the disk.
Now, there are lights on floppy disk drives that go on when the computer is using the disk in the drive.
When the light is on, never take out a floppy disk.
You could damage that way.
And you need to make sure you buy the right disk for your computer.
Inside the computer is a special disk drive.
You can't see it because it's inside and it's called drive C.
It's like someone took all these floppy disks and squashed it flat as a pancake
and put it inside the computer so you can use it.
I have a tip for if you're out there buying a computer,
I want you to buy one with the biggest hard disk you can find.
Software makes hardware something other than a big paperweight.
Like there's all kinds of music, there's all kinds of software.
And there's two general types of software.
The first one is operating system software.
And don't let the words throw you the disk operating system.
All it does is let the second type of software, the applications, work.
You need to know a little bit about DUS.
But first, let's talk about how the information is organized in your computer.
A computer is nothing other than one big filing cabinet.
Both hold information with drawers that are specific to what is inside.
Like it's easy to find your keys when you know where they are.
Inside the drawers, there are folders.
And inside the folders, well, there's files.
The drawers inside your computer are called directories.
The file folders, subdirectories.
And inside are all the files.
To put information inside your computer, you have to save it.
Unless you save it, it's all gone.
Now to make files and put them inside your computer,
you either save it with software programs
or you put software programs inside your computer.
To name your files, there's some pretty strict rules,
like you only get so much room on a label.
The first eight characters in a file name,
then you get three characters after that.
But you have to separate the eight and the three with a period.
Now you can use letters and numbers in a file name,
but here's a list of special characters that you can't use.
If you do use these characters,
the computer will give you an error message
and ask you to use a new file name.
And now we're going to talk about DOS, the Disk Operating System.
It's there when you turn on your computer that's called booting.
It's like the computer picked itself up by its own bootstraps.
When you turn on a computer, you hear some fan,
some beep, some rattling noises.
It's all normal.
When everything's all said and done,
you end up at the DOS prompt, where you do two things.
You type in an email address,
you type in an email address,
you type in an English-like sentence or a command
that lets you work with the files in your computer,
or you start a software program.
Let's start with the commands.
Now the letter C tells me that I'm using the C drive
or the computer's hard disk.
If it were an A, I'd be using the floppy disk drive,
but it all works the same.
The blinking line is the cursor.
It marks where what you type appears on the screen.
When you make a mistake, just press the backspace key,
and if you get an error message,
just type in something wrong.
Let's use a disk by first putting it into the disk drive
or drive A.
Just slide the disk in there.
Now at the DOS prompt, type in the name of the drive,
which is A, a colon, press Enter,
and you're going to see the C change to an A.
To go back, just type the name of the drive,
which is a C, colon, press Enter,
and we're right back where we started from.
That's how simple DOS is.
You enter a command, and you press Enter.
You're learning the most recent version of DOS, DOS 6.0.
Now there's older versions of DOS,
but they all work the same, basically.
I just want you to have the best knowledge.
Now inside a computer, most of them,
there's a battery-operated clock
so the computer can keep track of the day and time
even when the computer's off.
If your computer doesn't have a clock,
it thinks it's January 1st, 1980,
and President Carter's in office.
If you want to check or change the date in your computer,
just type in date and press Enter.
Now I know that's not the current date,
but I'm just going to move forward
because I want to check the time.
To check the time, just type in time, press Enter,
and it tells me what the computer thinks is the current time.
Here I can change it,
or I can just accept it by pressing Enter.
Now you should know that the computer keeps time
on a 24-hour clock,
so 3.30 in the afternoon is 15.30,
6 o'clock at night, 1800 hours.
Well, congratulations.
You just mastered three DOS commands.
It wasn't tough, and we didn't even open a manual.
Now diskettes have to be prepped or formatted
before you can use them.
This is the DOS command format.
You type in format where the disk is located,
which is in the A drive,
the name of the drive,
and a colon that tells the computer
it's a disk drive and not a file name.
Press Enter.
It asks me to put in a new floppy diskette,
which is already in there.
Press Enter, and it's going to go through
and get that diskette ready
so I can use it with my computer.
Now instead of doing this,
what you can do is buy a box of diskettes
where it already says formatted on there.
Now it's going to cost you a little bit more money,
but it saves you time in the interim.
I have to give you a big warning about formatting.
It erases all the information on the diskette.
Never format a hard disk.
Only floppy diskettes.
Now the computer will take off
until I get 100% complete,
and then it will ask me for a volume label.
That's almost like a file folder
inside the computer.
You can only see the volume label
when you look at the diskette with your computer.
The format's complete,
and now it asks me for a volume label.
I'll just type in my name, press Enter,
and now it will ask me
if I want to format another diskette.
I'll type in no, because we've got a lot to do.
Now you can,
inside your computer's filing cabinet,
there may be a time when you want to see
all the files and directories and drawers.
This is the directory command.
D-I-R, press Enter,
and you can hardly read them,
so there's a better way to do this.
It's D-I-R, oops,
see, I made a mistake,
backspace, slash, P,
that will show me the directories
at a time and all the files
in my computer a page at a time.
Press any key means
any key on the computer.
Now there's a whole bunch of stuff on the screen,
but the first two columns are the most important.
The first column, it's the first part
of a file name.
The second column, the second part of the file name.
And the directory in brackets,
it means it's a directory or a drawer
in my filing cabinet.
To change to another directory or drawer
in my filing cabinet,
change directory space,
the name of the drawer or directory,
which is letters,
press Enter, and now you can see
that I'm now in that drawer.
To go back, it's C-D,
backslash, like I want to go back,
so I use the backslash.
And you can see I'm right there at the C prompt.
Sometimes you may need to make
a new directory and always do it
when you just have a C on the screen like this.
So M-D, short for
make directory,
maybe I'll make a directory called Kim,
press Enter.
Now just to show you that it's there,
I'll do a directory again
to see all my files,
and it's right there on the bottom.
It was that easy.
Now to remove a directory, it's R-D,
short for remove directory,
space, the name of the directory,
which was Kim.
Now just to show you it's not there anymore,
I'll do a directory, press any key,
and you can see it's all gone.
It sure beats cleaning out a filing cabinet.
Now in poker, there are wild cards,
and in DOS, there are wild cards too.
Let me show you how to use a DOS wild card,
the asterisk.
Let's say you can't remember the name of a file
in your computer's filing cabinet.
You type in D-I-R,
space, shift-8 for that asterisk,
T-X-T.
What this does is it finds
all the files in my computer
with a T-X-T extension,
and it sure beats looking through papers
in a filing cabinet.
Renaming a file is another handy command.
Let's say I wanted to rename
new home
dot T-X-T.
Let's call it moving in,
because that's what we're going to be doing.
Press enter, and just to show you that
it's there, I'm going to use that asterisk
again, because I want to see all the files
that end in I-N.
And there it is. It's right on my screen.
Now sometimes it's handy
to copy a file from your computer
from your computer's hard disk
to a floppy disk.
Here we use the copy command,
the name of the file,
and where we want the file to go,
which is on the floppy disk
in the A drive.
Press enter, you see the light go on,
which tells me that the computer is copying
the file.
If you want to copy a file from a floppy disk
to the hard disk,
it's the same way with a few exceptions.
Copy, space,
where the file is located
in the A drive, and then
the name of the file, which is moving in.
Press enter, you hear the
light go on, which tells me that the
computer is copying the file.
Let's say you need to erase a file,
it's like house cleaning.
You type in erase, space,
the name of the file,
which is moving in. Press enter,
and it's all gone.
If you want to erase all the files on a floppy
disk, that's another handy command.
It's erase,
space,
where the floppy disk is,
which is in the A drive,
and that asterisk again, shift 8,
period, shift 8 to get the asterisk.
Press enter, you see the
light go on, and then DOS even warns me.
It says, are you sure you really want to do this?
And I'll say no, because
I'm not sure.
Now never use the erase star
dot star command on your hard disk,
and be very careful with it if you do
use it on your computer's hard disk.
Now if you erase a file
in DOS versions 5 and 6,
there's a special command to bring it back.
If you want to see what version
of DOS you have on your computer,
type in ver,
press enter, and it tells
me I'm using MS-DOS
version 6.0.
Now the command to bring back an erased file
is called the undelete command.
Type in undelete,
and the name of the file
on the computer's hard disk, which was
moving in. Press enter,
and you see a whole bunch of stuff
on the screen. But the important
question is, do you want to undelete it?
Type y for yes, it asks
me for the first character, the file name,
which was moving in, then gives me
a message that says, hey, you got it back.
Now when you buy new software,
it's always handy to keep
a backup copy as an insurance
policy. We use the DOS
command disk copy to make an exact
copy of a floppy diskette.
First what we do is
put in the original diskette
into the floppy disk drive,
and now we're going to use, we're going to
first go there by typing
a colon, because that's where we want to be.
That's the name of the floppy disk drive.
And now we type in
disk copy, because we want to make an
exact copy of that floppy
diskette. Now it says to insert
the source diskette, which I already
did. That's the original floppy
diskette that you want to make a copy of.
Press any key to continue,
and now what's going to happen is the computer
is going to take some information off of that disk,
and it's going to put it on what's called the target
disk, which is the blank
floppy diskette. And this is very
handy when you want to not only make
a copy of a software program as a
backup, but also if you have an
important information on a
diskette that you might be afraid if
you lost it, you'd really be in big trouble.
Now the computer has asked me to insert
the target diskette.
So I take out the source diskette,
and I put in the blank
diskette.
Press any key to continue,
and now it will finish copying that diskette.
Now the DOS disk copy
command takes a little bit of information
off the source disk, and puts
it on the target, or blank diskette,
at a time. So you may have to insert
the source, insert the target.
As you see, I've done on the screen.
Once it's all done,
you're asked, do you want to copy another diskette?
I'll say no, because we want to
use some more DOS commands.
Just one more on
the C drive. Type in
help. This is your
help. Anytime you want to scream
for help, you don't need to pick up a
manual. All you've got to do is look
to your computer for help.
Type help, a space,
and the name of the DOS command you want some
help on. Maybe it's copy.
Take a look at the screen now,
and everything you ever wanted
to know about the DOS command copy
is right there.
When you're done reading, press the
Alt key, the F,
and the X, and you're right
back at the DOS prompt.
And congratulations!
That's it! You just learned
DOS! See how easy?
It's not tough to use a
computer, and nothing even
blew up.
What would you say if I told you that the computer
will actually clean up your desk?
This is the way that my desk used to look.
I had a Rolodex that kept all my
names and addresses, a calculator
to do addition and subtraction,
a calendar to keep all my appointments,
my trusty typewriter
to type all those letters and reports,
I had glue, erasers, scissors,
rulers, and don't forget the
whiteout. But we always needed a
clock, so this way we knew what time
it was. Well, with a program called
Microsoft Windows, it makes it
easy and fun to use a computer
because everything's in pictures.
Everything's in reach, the stuff
in my desk, the stuff on my desk,
and everything happens, you guessed
it, in a window. Here
I'll show you. The whole screen
is one big window. When you
can see inside a window, like the games
window, it's open. When
you can't see inside a window, like the
windows along the bottom, they're closed.
When you first start Windows,
the program manager welcomes you.
He's like the head waiter in a restaurant,
and each window is a different
menu you can select from.
You can pick a menu to choose from
with either a mouse or a
keyboard. Now you can use just
a keyboard, but a mouse makes it so
much easier. Now this is a mouse.
It looks like a regular mouse except
for there's two buttons on the top.
To hold the mouse, you cradle
your hand above it, put your
index finger on the left mouse button,
your middle finger on the right mouse
button, your thumb and your
ring finger hold the mouse
in place. Now as you move
the mouse to the left, the mouse pointer
on the screen moves to the left too.
Move it to the right or in
circles, and the mouse pointer moves
the same way. Now there's a couple
of mouse commands you need to know about.
This is called pointing.
I'm pointing on the game Solitaire
with my mouse pointer.
There's also click, and to
click the mouse, what you do is
press and release the left mouse
button one time.
Double click, you push and release the
left mouse button two times quickly.
And if you ever lose the
mouse pointer, don't worry, it's still
there. All you have to do is pick up
the mouse, and the mouse pointer comes
back. Now whatever you do
happens inside a window
with your files or with your software
programs. Now you need
to use an open window in order
to use any of the pictures inside.
First let's pick Solitaire.
We're going to play the game Solitaire
because it's the best mouse training
around. First we point to the game
Solitaire, and to start a
software program like Solitaire,
we double click the left mouse
button, and
the game comes up on the screen.
Now this looks just like the regular card
game. I pick from the deck here,
and then I match the cards up in this
area. We need to move the 9
on the 10, so how do we
do that? We point to it,
we click with the left mouse button,
and we move the mouse so it's there,
and once it's there, we
let go of the left mouse button,
and drop it. And that's called
dragging. To uncover this
card, I point to it, and I
click, and it uncovers the card.
We're going to point and click on
the deck to show more cards.
It's that easy.
It doesn't look like I'm going to win,
so I'm just going to end this game right now.
And how do we close a window?
We point and click on
this box that's called the control panel.
Point and double click there,
and I'm right back where I started.
I want you to check out the pictures
in Windows. These are called
icons, and you've seen them before.
Icons are on street signs,
the little stick figures walking across the street.
And underneath the icons,
there's always a label that tells you
exactly what the program is.
We're going to use the clock program now,
and to do it, first we point to it,
click the left mouse button,
and now we double click to start
the program. And you see a clock
appear in the upper right-hand corner.
And also on the clock, there's
a menu bar that says, I can change
the settings. I point and click
on settings, and a pull-down menu appears
just like a window shade.
And in here, I can change
the type of clock I have from an
analog, the kind with the hands,
to a digital clock by pointing and clicking.
Now, to make the clock
really big or really small,
you use these buttons. We're going to
shrink it by pointing and clicking on
the down arrow. Point and click,
and it's down there at the bottom of the screen.
To bring it back,
I point on it and get it back
by double clicking. Well, congratulations.
You just ran your first
Windows program, and it was so easy.
So from now on, instead
of saying point with the mouse pointer
by moving the mouse to wherever,
I'm going to shorten it up. I'm just going to say point,
that's it. Click or push
the left mouse button one time,
it's click. Double click means
push the left mouse button two times
quickly. You got it?
So you may never use a typewriter again
after I show you this program.
It's called Write, and it's a word processing
program. It's just like using
a typewriter, only better.
To use the program, I point on it,
double click to start a software
program, and I get a blank
screen, or like a blank piece of paper.
This is the cursor in the upper
left hand corner. This is the mouse
pointer. It becomes an I-beam
when it's in the center of the screen,
or when it's on a menu bar, it's an arrow.
Let's just start typing
as if it were a typewriter,
and I'll type my name.
And it's so easy to type this way.
So just point and click.
Now anytime you use a word
processing program or any other
software program, a good rule of thumb
is to save early and save often.
To save a software
program, a file that you made with a software
program, you point on
file, point and click
on save, and now I
can type in a file name. And I'll
just call this Kim1.
I point and click on OK,
and the file has been
saved, and you can tell by looking
up at the top of the screen,
you can see the name of the file.
Now another feature in Windows
is called the clipboard.
It's a cut, copy, and
paste feature that allows you to
take information from one software
program and put it into another
software program like we used
to do with scissors. I'm going
to cut, copy, and paste,
but I'm just going to use copy. I'm going to copy
my name by first placing
the I-beam at the beginning of what
I want to copy, clicking the
left mouse button, dragging
the mouse, holding it across.
When I reach the end, I release
the left mouse button.
Point and click on edit,
and I see copy.
Point and click on copy,
and now whatever I highlighted
has been pasted to the Windows
clipboard. So it's a good
idea that when you need to copy
something, hey, you don't need to type it
again. All you do is use the features
of cut, copy, and paste
that are in almost every software
program. I want you to play around
with this software program. It's really neat.
You're not going to hurt anything,
and when you're all done, you point
and click on file,
point and click on exit,
and I'm right back where I started from.
Now we're going to use the calculator
that's a lot like the calculator you
may have on your desk. To use a program,
we point on it,
and then we double click to start
the program. It looks just like
a regular calculator, but instead of
pushing buttons, I point and click
on the numbers. Eight divided
by point and click on two
equals, by pointing and clicking,
four. It's that easy.
Now to close a program,
you know how we do it. We point
and click, double click,
on the control panel.
Now we're going to use the card file,
and a card file is like a Rolodex file,
and I started it by pointing
and double clicking, and I have
all these index cards in there,
and when you want to add an index card to
your file, I point and click
on card, but see the F7?
I want you to notice something very
special about that. Point
and click and add, and I can add
a card to my file. Maybe
I want to add a bread recipe.
Point and click on OK, and
I have it. Now remember I copied
my name? If I point
and click on edit,
see the paste? Now watch what happens.
It's really neat. Point and click
on paste, and there I have
my name. I didn't even have to retype it.
So all the Windows programs
use that feature, copy, cut,
and paste, so any program you can
use it in. It's really neat.
These arrows up here, when I point and click
on those, I can move
my recipes, or whatever's in my
card file, in that direction.
When you're all done, you know how
we exit. We point on file
and click the left mouse
button, point and click on exit.
It asks me if I want to save my changes,
which it's a good idea to save your
files, but I'll say no by pointing
and clicking on no.
And now we're going to use the calendar,
which is like my appointment book.
Point and double click to start
the program, and I can have all
my appointments in one spot.
I'm going to put in a lunch appointment
at 12 o'clock by pointing
and clicking. I'll type in lunch.
It's that easy to make an
appointment in your book. Now let's say
I want to go home. I point and
click on 8 o'clock maybe.
I type in go home, or
just home, and now I want
the computer to remind me with an alarm.
So I point and click on alarm.
I want to set an alarm,
and I have an alarm in the corner.
Now like, see the F5
at the end of that? If I want to
set an appointment with an alarm
at the lunch time, all
I do is press the F5 key
on my keyboard, and it sets
an alarm automatically. It's
that easy. Now over here
on the right side of the screen, it kind of
works like an elevator. By
pointing and clicking on the down
arrow, the elevator goes down,
and you see how the screen moves too,
showing me more appointments.
Point and click on the up arrow,
and the elevator moves up.
It's really kind of neat, and you'll see this
in all Windows programs.
This is called the scroll bar.
But since we're all done with our calendar,
I'm going to point and click on file,
point and click on exit.
Again, it asks me if I want to save.
I'll say no, point and click on
no, and I'm right back in the main
window. Now this program's
really neat. This is called the paintbrush
program, and we're going to paint,
kinda. I point on
paintbrush, double click to start the program,
and I have a full
artist palette here.
I'm not a very good artist, but at least I
try. I'm going to open something that I
drew, point and click on
file, point and click on
open a file to get it,
and my file's down on the bottom, so I have to
use those elevators. So I
point and click on the down arrow to show
more file names.
Point and click on the file name that I want,
which is KT, because it
gets that file for me and tells me that's
the file name I want.
Point and click on OK, and I have
the file right on my screen.
Now to use paintbrush,
I have all my tools right here.
I'm going to point and click on a paintbrush
because that's what I want.
I want this size paintbrush, point
and click, and maybe
green is a good color for today, so I
point and click on that. And now
my mouse pointer is a paintbrush.
And again, I told you I'm not a
very good artist, but at least I try.
So I don't want to ruin my picture,
so now I can undo, which is
great, everything I just did.
So I point and click on edit,
point and click on undo,
and I have it right back
the way I wanted it.
So you should be noticing right now
that when you learn one software program
in Windows, you can use them all.
When something is grayed out, like
pick on our menu bar,
that means you can't use it.
You can't use it at that time.
I'm going to point on file.
I'm going to point and click on exit.
It asks me if I want to save my changes.
Nah, we don't want to do that.
And we're right back where we started.
Now do you remember that filing
cabinet I told you about that a computer
is like one big filing cabinet?
I'm going to show you. It's in Windows
too. It's right here in the main
menu, and we're going to open up that window
by pointing to it and
double clicking. It's right here.
It's called my file manager.
It's my filing cabinet
inside my computer.
So I'm going to point to it. I'm going to double click.
And I have a whole
inventory of all the files,
all the directories
and subdirectories inside
my computer. And they're all
listed here along the left side.
And on the right side are all my files.
The letter you see here up
at the top, the C, tells me I'm using
the C drive. The B
tells me I'm using the second floppy disk drive
in my computer. The A,
the first floppy disk drive.
What's really kind of neat about the file
manager is let's say I wanted to
copy a file. Say kids
.txt. I
point and click on the file.
That's all. And then I hold down
the left mouse button and we're going to
drag it to where we want it. I want
it on the floppy disk in the A drive.
When I drop the file
there by releasing the left mouse button,
the computer asks me, are you really
sure? Point and click on
yes and you see the light go on
in the first floppy disk drive
or the A drive because that's where we told
it to go. Now there's also other
things that you can do in your filing cabinet
with file manager. Let's say
you wanted to search for a file. You wanted
to find a lost file.
Point and click on file,
point and click on search
and I can search for all the files
depending upon any way I want to find
them. Last time I wanted to see all
the files with the txt extension.
To do that again,
I point and click on okay
and then the computer goes through and it finds
every file that has the txt
on the end.
Point and click here and I'm right
back where I started from.
Point and click on the menus
in the menu bar and you'll see a lot
of dos commands are right here
just by using the mouse.
It's really great to use the
file manager. It'll save you a lot of time
and energy and it's easy.
Let's point and click on exit
and we're right back where we were.
Now let's say you bought a new software
program and you want to put
it on the computer. It's not very
difficult. Usually software
comes on one to two
or maybe sometimes even ten diskettes.
The most important
diskette is the first one.
It says program one. It'll have the number
on it. Here are the instructions
on how to put a software program
into your computer.
To install you're going to first put the
diskette into the drive A.
You're going to choose run from the Windows
program manager. I'll show you how
to do that. Also you're going to type
A colon install
and press enter. But first we have
to take out the diskette that we
copied the file to.
We're going to put in the first program diskette
into the A drive,
label side up,
slide it in there, you hear a click
and now we're going to choose
file run from the program manager.
Point and click on
file, point and click on
run and now I type in
what it told me on the diskette
which was A colon
install. Point
and click on OK
and now the software
is going on my computer.
What happens is it will go through one diskette,
two diskettes until the software
is all done. And as it gets
ready to install you may be asked
for certain information like
your name and the serial number of
the software. You can see Word
Perfect is getting ready to be
installed from the floppy disk to the
hard disk. Now with Word Perfect
or any other software you want to
install just follow the directions
on the screen. After you
install a new software program that
works with Microsoft Windows
you get a new window on your screen.
Let's use it. We have a new window
Word Perfect
and to open the window you know how
to do this. I point and I
double click and I see what's
inside that window. Now to
start a new software program
it's point and double click
and you get this hourglass
that says hey the computer is telling you I'm
working. I'm trying to get the software
going. We're in Word Perfect for
Windows but I'm not going to teach you that
now because you learned that on tape too.
But you already know how to get out of a
Windows program. I point and
click on file. I point
and click on exit and I'm right back
where I started. So to close
a window you know how to do it.
I point and double click on the control
panel. To open it up
I point and double click again.
If you want to change the size of your
window just move the mouse pointer
towards the edge. Push
or click the left mouse button once
until you get a double arrow
and just move it where you want it to go.
If I want to change this
just put the hour there, click the left
mouse button, hold it down and
just move it. It's that easy.
But look at these windows. I can't
see what I have on my desktop.
To clean it up watch this.
I point and click on
window, point and click on
tile and everything is
so neatly arranged. Now
a real important part of Windows is
going out the same door you
came in and that's with the program
manager up on top.
Now to exit Windows and it's important
that you do this before turning off
your computer. As I point
and click on file
I point and click on exit.
It's important because this way the
desktop looks like this when you come back.
If I point and click on
OK I'm right back at
the DOS prompt. Wasn't that
fun? Aren't computers
easy? I mean they're not tough. Anybody
can use a computer. I mean whether you're
8 or 80, I mean the computer
is wonderful and you just saw
how Windows took
all the stuff on my desktop
and put it right here on my computer
so I can use it quickly.
I mean you don't have to be a rocket
scientist to learn computers
and soon we're going to use more
programs and you'll see everything
else that you can do with a computer.
Music