This is actually a republish of an article I wrote last year. I can’t believe I found this rummaging through my archive of computer files I kept over the years. It’s a Microsoft Word document I created on June 19, 1995 while working at a UCLA computer lab. Here is what I wrote in verbatim:
Frequently Asked Questions and Some Common Troubleshooting Tips
How do I change printers?
To change printers on the Macintosh (while using any program):
First, on the upper left hand corner of the screen and on the menu bar, there is an apple icon. Move the cursor to this icon. Click on it and keep the mouse button depressed. This will bring up a new menu of choices. (This menu of choices is commonly referred to as the Apple Menu.) Now drag the mouse so that the word Chooser is highlighted and release the button. This will bring up a new window. To select an image writer printer, click on the Appletalk Imagewriter icon. To select the laser printer, click on the Laser Printer icon.
To change printers on the IBM (any Microsoft product)
Go to the File Menu and select Printer Setup. This will bring up a window with a list of printers. Select appropriate type and select OK.
To change printers on the IBM (WordPerfect)
If there is a menu bar, go to the file menu and select print, or press Shift+F7. Press S to bring up a selection of printers. Highlight the appropriate printer and press 1 to select it.
My paper is printing on the printer, but it is not aligned correctly. How do I fix this?
First, check to see if the margins are set properly on your document. You can do this by going to the Format Menu and selecting Document. If this does not correct the problem, then check to see if the perforations of the paper are aligned properly on the printer (dot matrix only).
I saved my file, but every time I check my disk, it’s not there! What happened to my file?
Most probably, you saved your file somewhere on the hard drive. To correct this, make sure that you change the current directory to the directory that you would like to save your files in.
I just bought a new disk. How do I format it so that I can use it on the IBM?
To format a disk (Windows):
Open up File Manager. Next, go to the Disk Menu and select Format Disk. Select the drive you wish to format the disk in and the capacity of the disk. Then, select OK.
To format a disk (DOS):
At the DOS prompt, type format d:/f:size where d is the drive letter and size is the capacity of the disk.
I am a newbie to the Internet, and I would like to download GIFs from a site. How do I do this?
There are two ways in which you can do this at an HCF lab. First, you can either use a net browser like Mosaic or Netscape. Locate the file and click on it. Then, Mosaic or Netscape will ask you if wish to download it. The other way is through anonymous ftp. Load either FTP (IBM) or Fetch (Macintosh). Next enter either the domain name or the IP Address of the site you wish to connect to. Use either anonymous, ftp, or your e-mail address as your password. Once connected, you can select the file(s) you wish to download.
The just goes to show you how some things have changed (e.g. computing) while other things remained the same (e.g me creating troubleshooting articles).