Phil Penne Creations
Writing ~ Photography ~ Digital Stained Glass ~ Handmade Soap ~ Native American style flutes
This is an excerpt from my book, Geezer Tech: The Guide to Living with Technology for Baby Boomers and Before. This section is an instructional piece dealing with hooking up the various elements of a newly purchased computer system, explained in terms that are easily grasped by those intimidated by technology.
...Okay, so armed with what you learned from this book so far, you marched yourself over to the closest store that sells computers, listened to what the salesperson was saying and hopefully understood a fair amount of what they were jabbering about. You loaded a bunch of boxes into your shopping cart, drove home with your swag, unpacked it all, then suddenly came to the horrible realization that, jeez Louise, you have to plug in all this stuff!
Sure, all of those different cables look like something out of a Fifties sci-fi movie, but taking things one step at a time, you can get this whole mess connected up and working. Oh, and before you get started, there are a couple of things you’re going to need to know. First and foremost, no matter what you’re plugging into what on a computer system, the plug doesn’t ‘sort of’ or ‘kind of’ fit - plugs and jacks on computer cables and devices are designed to fit exactly. I kid you not - I’ve had people plug the wrong cable into the wrong jack on the computer (like a USB cable into an Ethernet jack - which I’ll explain in just a minute), their excuse being, “Well, it kind of fit”. Wrong. It either fits exactly or it doesn’t - there is no ‘sort of’. Oh, and before you freak out and think that “Omigosh, I’m going to plug a cable in upside down or backward and blow something up”, it’s not going to happen. Plugs on computer cables and the jacks into which they plug are specifically shaped or ‘keyed’ so they go in one way, and one way only - unless you beat the thing in with a hammer (you’re not going to do that, right?), you can’t get it wrong. Oh, and finally, as you plug in each device, don’t forget to turn it on!
Okay, so knowing that, let’s get started. There’s a good chance you’re going to need a power strip into which you can plug all the electrical plugs for the computer and all of the devices that connect to it; if you can find a power strip that has a built-in ‘surge suppressor’ (a gadget that keeps electronic devices from getting too much power), even better. Don’t worry about tripping a circuit breaker with everything plugged into one power strip - today’s computers and peripherals use just a fraction of the power consumed by their twentieth-century predecessors. So right now, before you start plugging in all the other stuff, find a power strip, plug it into the wall receptacle and, if it has a power switch, turn it on.
To make it easy on yourself, keep any cables that came with a device with that device - if you dump everything into one big pile it will make things just that much harder to sort out. So, do you have the computer itself sitting there? Great. There’s some sort of electrical plug that came with it - either a regular power cord or one of those voltage adapters.
The end with the familiar 2 or 3 prongs plugs into the power strip, the other end will plug into the computer. Remember the rule: plugs that go into computers don’t ‘sort of’ fit. There will be a specific jack on the computer into which the other end of the power cord goes.
By the way, if a power adapter is plugging into the computer, another hint as to which hole it plugs into will be that it may be marked with something like, ‘12VDC’ ‘or ‘15VDC’. That indicates the voltage going into the computer, generally either 12 or 15 volts DC. Okay, now push the power button on the computer - did the power light come on? Congratulations! If not, is the power strip plugged into the wall receptacle? Is the power strip turned on? One of those will most likely be the culprit.
Next, put the monitor (the TV looking thing) somewhere fairly near the computer so the cable can reach, yet in a location convenient for viewing. If you’ve got the computer lying flat on your desktop, the monitor can probably sit right on top of it – it doesn’t weigh much and will in no way damage the computer by sitting on top of it. Okay, most computer devices have at least 2 cables running to/from them: one is for the power, the other is so that device - whatever it might be - can communicate with the computer. Plug one end of the power cord into the power strip (the power cord’s going to look pretty much like it did for the computer, either a single power cord or a power adapter), and the other end into the monitor. As mentioned before, if you compare the plug you’re holding in your hand to the different plug-ins on the monitor, it should be apparent where it goes. If you put your ‘up close’ glasses on most connectors will have abbreviations or symbols on them that help you figure out what goes where. In the case of a power connection on the monitor, it may be stamped with ‘117 VAC’ (meaning 117 volts AC, which is what comes out of your wall receptacle), or something similar. So now the monitor has power. The next thing it needs some way to actually communicate with the computer; this is where things can vary to some degree: where keyboards, mouses, and printers generally connect only one way, monitors can ‘talk’ to the computer in either of 2 basic ways. In order of probability, the monitor will connect to the computer using either:
...'VGA' ('Video Graphics Array') connectors
...'HDMI' ('High Definition Multimedia Interface') connectors
The overwhelming majority of PC’s out there are going to have a VGA connector on the back of them; if that’s what came with your monitor, that’s definitely an easy choice. Some monitors use HDMI connections; in order to use them, your computer will need to have an HDMI jack on it, which more PC’s and laptops are starting to feature. Don’t lose sleep over this though; pretty much every monitor out there - and a lot of modern TV's - have VGA connectors on them. In fact, the laptop I’m working on right now is connected to an ‘LCD’ (Liquid Crystal Display) television that has a VGA connector on it. Not to worry - it’s by far the most popular type of video connection for PC style computers. By the way, VGA connectors will most often have a screw on either side of the plug, and the jack into which it plugs on the computer will have corresponding nuts. While it’s not an absolute necessity to screw the cable into place, it’ll save the aggravation later on of having the plug fall out of the jack. Okay, now, push the on/off button on the monitor - you should see some sort of power light - and you’re done with the monitor hookup...