school, ‘Plus’, ‘SE’, & j soni Ishida is a a Japanese: 7 exchange teacher to British Col- = umbia who has been in Terrace "since ‘January 6. He has been _*: teaching basic. Japanese lan- - _- guage and culture at his host Clarence Michiel “ Elementary, as. well as other o schools i in the area,’ by Pam Whitaker _ ‘Before he came to Terrace, » Ishida spent some time in Camp- -. bell River schools, his host school being. Campbell River Senior Secondary. When he left . | Tokyo October’ 15, 1988, because of crossing the Interna- tional Date Line, he arrived i in . Vancouver the same day. From _ there he flew directly to Camp- bell River. The only other time he had been in Canada was five . _ years ago to Niagara Falls, On- tario, “The people I stayed sith i in ‘Campbell River. lived out: of ~” town and I was surprised to see so’ much wood. Also, it is the first time I- have seen eagles, seals, and deer in their natural -habitat,”’ he commented. -“‘T- heard it was very, very cold in Terrace, so thinking my down jacket wouldn’t be’ warm enough, I borrowed. a ‘thicker Computalk Hardware — getting past some basic jargon In my last column I committed the sin of using computer jargon without explaining it to the new user. More specifically T° referred to the need to run a certain program on an ‘AT’-level - ; computer, ‘XT’, ‘AT’, what does it all mean? One of the most intimidating things to a newcomer to . computers is the j jargon, those quasi-technical terms glibly thrown about by the ‘initiates’ in a manner that tends to confuse rather than illuminate, As the amount of jargon used is __ massive enough to occupy 10 articles rather than just one, [’ll . ‘stick to the most common terms as I start to describe computer . hardware. "Microcomputers belong to various ‘families’ of machines, that : _' is machines that are more or less compatible with each other. ' Thus we have the IBM-compatibles (often called MS-DOS machines), the Apple MacIntosh family, the Apple I family, the Commodore Amiga, the Ataris, and a number of others. Most families are restricted to specific manufacturers’ product lines — (Apple, Atari, etc.), The major exception is in the area of the IBM compatibles, a field populated by thousands of marketers selling machines assembled by hundreds of manufacturers, all capable of running most (if not all) programs designed to be operated on MS-DOS machines. Since it is this family that ~ spawns the most confusion, we'll start with it. The first jargon term then is MS-DOS, which stands for Microsoft Disk Operating System, which is just a program that allows different manufacturers’ computers to run the same set of application programs. If you’re a beginning ._ computer buyer, think of MS-DOS as being similar to a phrase _. such as ‘VHS video’ or ‘35 mm cameras’, It just describes a family of computers, another term for IBM-compatible. . Within the IBM compatible world there are different levels of machines determined by the type of processor used within the "_. Machine, This basically determines the machine’s capabilities, and hence price. So we have the "XT’, the ‘AT’ often called a ‘286’, ~~ and the ‘386’. Similarly in the MacIntosh family we have the = & ‘Mac ID’, A good analogy would be cars. We ‘could equate the XT to an economy car with a 4 cylinder engine, . ‘the AT toa midrange vehicle with a 6 cylinder engine, and the i 386 to a large truck with a big diesel engine. . However, a computer system is more than a car; think of it as os an office system, so we need other components besides the pro- ~. ¢essor to make it function. First there’s RAM (Random Access -. Memory), which the user can simply think of as desktop working space. All computer programs require a certain minimum amount of RAM, and most perform better if they have extra. Memory (computer storage) is measured in Kilobytes (thousands of text _ :eharacters), so when your neighborhood computer fanatic talks o of 640K RAM think of a desktop with room enough for approx- imately 300 text pages of storage. Besides the ‘desktop’ storage (which disappears when >the power is shut off), a computer system has long-term storage usually referred to as ‘disk’ storage, since current- : “ty it utilizes magnetic disk technologies. These come in two kinds, removeable (floppies) which have capacities . . -fanging from 360K to 1.4M (Megabytes — millions of characters) per disk, and fixed (hard) which currently come ‘dn capacities of 20M to 80M (think: 10,000 to 40,000 text pages). So far we've just looked at part of the core of acom-. . puter system: processor, memory, and disk storage. In. _ succeeding issues we'll look at two rapidly changing. _ areas, display technology and printers, one. I found the weather not so. cold,’” he said, “though it was my first experience at minus 23 degrees.”? In Ferrace, Ishida was excited to see the northern lights. He ‘had never-seen them before. He _has tried ice fishing at Lakelse Lake, but didn’t catch anything. (Nor did he at Campbell River). Driving a car around on Lakelse Lake’s ice was as much fun to him as the fishing was: “‘Of course it was a Japanese model car I was driving on the ice,” he joked. At home he has a Subaru. - | Ishida, a retired high school teacher, has. noticed while in- structing in our schools that the small children don’t realize the technical equipment they are us- ing is made in Japan. ‘‘They seem to have less knowledge about Japan than China,” he said. ‘Sometimes they ask me to say something in Chinese.’’>» English is the main subject Ishida taught in Japan. for 36 years. He appreciates this Cana- dian opportunity to develop fluency in speaking the language. Tsuchiura, his home town of - 120, 000, is’ 60 kilometers north- east of Tokyo’s 12 million peo- ple. It is situated on the second - largest lake in Japan. There he lives with his wife, who will join him in B.C, in. the summer. Perhaps they will tour the prov- - ince together before returning home, _ . The couple - have ‘two grown children; a son who is employed in a ‘*Canon’’ factory, and a daughter who is a free lance - magazine illustrator. Ishida’s home town Tsuchiura is a ‘‘man-made’’ city (deliberately formed), the sub- ject of a scientific study. One hundred kilometers from there is where he was raised — his native place. That place reminds him a little of Terrace, as it receives up .. to three meters of snow in the _. Winter and is mountainous. Skiing and tennis are hobbies of Ishida, but he is not likely to try tennis here. “In Japan we: use softer (rubber) tennis balls,’’ he said. At the time the sport was developed in Japan, tennis balls were very expensive, so consequently they learned to use softer balls. “I am enjoying life in Ter- race,”’ said Ishida. ‘‘I like the people, the students. My aim in coming here is to be a more - fluent speaker in English and to make more friends! If I could. say something to the people of Terrace, it would be, thank you very much!’’ Yasunaka Ishida will return to Campbell River in April. Experienced Filipino Nanny Seeks live-in position as nanny/housekeeper iny Terrace area. Available ® immediately. : Your monthly cost: $535 plus room and board, Phone 635-4706. Yasunaka Ishida has spent the last three months in Terrace — teaching local students about Japanese culture while he learns about the Northwest. Ishida Is a retired teacher who is spending time in B. C. through the Ministry of Education Pacific Rim initiative. This week in local schools School District 88 advises parents that children will soon be riding their bikes to school again. Parents are requested to _ take a few moments to gO Over the rules of the road with them and to use extra caution when driving. . Monday, April 3 — Classes resume following spring break. ien | Taxation. Revenue Canada Thursday, April 6 — The. Melloyds a-capella vocal quartet will perform for students at Kit- wanga Elementary/Junior Sec- _ ondary at 1:30 p.m, Saturday, April 8 — Thornhill Junior Secondary second term honor roll students will be treated to a ski trip to Smithers from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Revenu Canada Impat Tax questions? We've got the answers! If questions crop up when you’re fill- . ing Out your tax return, there’s no need to leave home for help. The answers to your questions are a phone call away. Revenue Canada, Taxation will be available with answers to your questions. ‘From now to the end of April, Monday through Thursday, this service will be available to 9 p.m. Look for our local and toll-free long- distance numbers in your telephone directory, or at the back of your income tax guide. When you need help, we're close at hand, Canada