Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain admits he has never used a computer. When I realised my own 77-year old mother can open an Internet browser, send e-mail, download photos of her grandkids and visit web pages, it felt my civic duty to introduce Senator McCain to the wonderful world of computing.

His daughter helps him “watch” the Drudge Report online (pretty good because Matt’s website requires “reading”) and he talks on a Blackberry telephone just don’t ask him to send or receive any e-mail… besides his daughter’s a busy lady and we want her to have a life as well.

So, in this series of easy-to-follow lessons we’ll introduce the Senator to a history of computing and this brave new technological world. He once went on Saturday Night Live (a US sketch comedy show) and said “Americans should elect someone who is very, very, very old.” Age is no excuse here sir. The course catalogue is below and we’ll be happy to come walk you through each 6-minute lesson (because that’s how much time you have during this busy campaign).

Lesson One: From Telex to Facsimile our friend the telephone as a data transmission vehicle.
Senator, after you returned from Vietnam you were too busy to recognise that the good folks at Bell Labs and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) were looking at ways to send data to and from locations around the globe. In this lesson we chart the growth of data telephony stopping at the dawn of fibre optic-cable. Too much of this too fast and your brain swells and hurts.

Lesson Two: From Fun with Fortran to the 1st PC’s
During the 1970’s most of us studying computer sciences in University had to write out our programmes on hundreds of computer punch cards (and in the exact correct order) and if someone wanted to play a joke on you, they’d take out one card from the stack and lose it. You then had to book mainframe time on the school’s only computer, a vacuum tube filled behemoth that was as big as a room to prove your program. Thankfully in 1981 the good folks at IBM created a box with a monitor and suddenly with WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, we could put words on a page or numbers in spreadsheet columns. The personal computer was born.

Lesson Three: From Geek in a Garage to Geek Philanthropist
Bill Gates created something called an operating system in his garage and then took over the world faster than any despot could have dreamed. In 20-years’ time his machines ruled every office.

Lesson Four: The Internet and why we had to buy a computer twice a year during the 1990s
Your Pentagon buddies developed this wonderful vehicle we now use to send jokes, fear mongering e-mail about viruses and Barack Obama and receive news about Viagra, Canadian pharmacies, and penile implants… The pipeline was slow and small in the early 90s but we wanted to push graphics and movies down it. Between 1994 and 1999 processor speeds increased by 100x as these boxy machines got smaller, sexier and faster. This is when most became involved in e-mail and computing. We just got frustrated things were so slow.
 
Lesson Five: Job and the Apple
Sorry not Job (I guess neither one of us did well in Bible study, eh?)… Steve Jobs wanted a better machine and built it, the Macintosh. Problem was Bill Gates was a better marketer. So if you were in business, you bought PCs, if you were in design or media you bought an Apple because it was like the really cool, new rich girl in class – something you know about, eh Senator, (wink, wink)?

Lesson Six: Mobile telephony, you decide what you want to see and hear and when.
Imagine no longer having to sit politely at 6:30 to watch Uncle Walter or Dan Rather on the telly, you can download their broadcast to your Blackberry and watch when you want to.

So those are the basic courses, now on to the tutorial.

We’ll go very slowly.

1st press the big round on button and we’ll wait while the computer boots up. While we’re waiting we’re working with two programs today sir, Internet Explorer – so you can surf the Web – and Outlook so you can read and send e-mail… oh…, I’m sorry there seems to be a system disk error I have to re-boot the machine, sorry for the delay Senator, I have to seek an Administrator to fix this problem, Aaaaargh! (sound of me booting the machine across the room.)

Does anyone here have a Mac or an iPhone?

OK Senator this one’s even simpler…