Chapter 2
Later that evening, Mike and Oliver returned home after what ended up being two extra trips to Shanana Thrift Store. While there the first time, Oliver made sure that Mike got everything that was needed to get adequate use out of the computer that he had bought earlier. Mike ended up buying a keyboard, mouse, microphone, speakers, and 3.5" floppy disks – as well as several CD-ROMs. Upon returning home to test the computer for the first time, Oliver found that the Windows 98 installation had been badly corrupted. As a result, Mike and Oliver went back to the thrift store – where they got a Windows 95 CD-ROM – as well as a copy of Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95.
Upon returning home, Mike asked that the other Bradys wait in their rooms until Oliver and he set up the computer. Since it was to be a family computer, Mike decided to set it up in the family room. He had already purchased a small wooden desk earlier in the day to be used for the computer. After positioning the desk in between the kitchen doorway and the record player, Mike and Oliver (mostly Oliver) set up the computer on the desk – plugging the computer and monitor into electrical sockets and plugging the peripheral devices into the computer. Oliver then installed Windows 95 on the computer, and after doing so, he installed the other programs that Mike had bought. Mike also ran a telephone line over the kitchen doorway so that it could reach the computer. Finally, around 9:00 PM – almost three hours after dinner, the computer was ready for the Bradys to use.
"Okay, gang, the computer's ready!" Mike announced from the living room. Within seconds, excited chattering filled the upstairs hall as the Bradys came out of their rooms and headed downstairs. They followed Mike into the family room, and Alice soon joined them. The Bradys all crowded around the computer desk – looking over the setup with interest. In front of the computer was Oliver – sitting in the green chair that used to be in the computer desk's place. Mike decided that it might as well serve as the chair for the computer desk.
"You guys ready?" Oliver asked. The Bradys indicated that they were, and with that, Oliver pressed the large gray button on the computer to start the system. The Bradys watched the monitor and at first saw a black screen with several lines of white text. That soon changed to a bright screen with a picture of clouds. A melodious tune came from the speakers, and a bunch of icons appeared on the left side of the screen. The Bradys looked somewhat bewildered by this device.
"Wow," Greg said. "I've never seen anything like this before! It's like a TV except that the pictures don't move as fast."
"The computer can do much more," Oliver said. "Let me just grab the mouse – "
"MOUSE?" shrieked Alice – causing the Bradys to first look at her and then at Oliver.
"Relax, Alice, I just mean this," Oliver said – holding up the PS/2 computer mouse.
Alice breathed a sigh of relief. "Don't ever scare me like that again!" she cried. The other Bradys laughed. Oliver then opened one of the CD-ROM cases and took out a disk.
"Whoa! That's a weird-looking record!" Greg said.
"It's so shiny and so small," Jan added.
"It's not a record – it's a CD-ROM, but its design is very similar to that of a record," Oliver said. "CD-ROM drives use lasers instead of needles to play disks."
"Lasers? Cool!" Bobby said.
For the next thirty minutes, Oliver demonstrated the computer – running various programs. The Bradys were marveled by the sound, graphics, and functionality of the computer. Mike was right – it was better than TV! At last, Oliver finished demonstrating the computer, and the question arose as to who would be the first, besides Oliver, to try out the computer.
"I wanna try it!" Cindy said. "I want to play that Nancy Drew haunted mansion game!"
"No way! I want to use that typing thing to make my own newspaper!" Peter said.
"I want to get on AOL!" Marcia said.
The Brady siblings started arguing amongst themselves – their voices getting louder and angrier – until Mike shouted, "HOLD IT!" The Bradys all looked startled and instantly became quiet as they gave Mike their undivided attention. "It's clear that the computer is a big hit in this family – maybe we got more than we bargained for. In any case, every one of us will have a chance to use the computer, but we will have to settle the question over which of you kids will go first. Why don't you write your names on pieces of paper, put them in a hat, and then, Alice will draw out a name?"
Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby, and Cindy all agreed, so they did just that. They all watched anxiously, and Bobby did a drum roll as Alice drew a name out of Greg's baseball hat. "Jan!" Alice announced.
The Bradys all turned their attention to the middle child – whose eyes widened. "Oh, wow!" Jan said – smiling a little.
"Lucky," teased Greg.
"Okay, Jan, you can spend an hour on the computer tonight," Carol said. She turned her attention to the others. "Since it's getting late, the rest of us can try out the computer tomorrow." A few of the Bradys groaned a little. Most of the other Bradys began leaving the family room.
For about a minute or so, Jan just stared at the computer – unsure of what to do. By this point, she was the only one in the family room – until Oliver came back in.
"Are you enjoying the computer, Jan?" Oliver asked.
Jan shook her head. "Not really. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with this thing."
"Let me help you," Oliver said – kneeling on the floor beside Jan. He then gave her a personal lesson on how to use the keyboard and mouse. He then showed Jan how to use CD-ROMs – and gave another demonstration of the various programs that he had shown the Bradys earlier. After about forty-five minutes, Jan finally seemed to get the hang of using the computer.
"This is pretty groovy," Jan said. "Owning a computer makes life so much easier and fun! We should have gotten one years ago!"
"I agree," said Oliver.
Just then, Carol entered the family room. "Okay, Oliver, it's time for bed." Carol then looked at Jan. "And Jan, honey, you ought to turn in for the night soon, too."
"Aww, but Mom, I just got started using this thing," moaned Jan. "Most of my time on here has been spent learning from Oliver. Can't I stay up just a little longer? After all, it IS the beginning of summer."
Carol sighed. "Okay, but I want you in bed no later than midnight."
"Thanks, Mom," Jan said with a smile. "Now I can finally try out some of these groovy records!" She looked at Oliver. "Thank you so much for helping me with the computer."
"No problem, Jan," Oliver said, "but remember, they're called CD-ROMs." With that, Carol and he left Jan alone in the family room.
Jan looked at the numerous CD-ROM cases sitting on the desk. There were so many things that she could do on the computer. One game, however, was stuck in her mind. When Oliver demonstrated it to her, it looked like a lot of fun to play. Jan opened the Warcraft II CD-ROM case and loaded the disk into the computer. When the game menu appeared on the screen, Jan started a new campaign against the Orcs.
The game started off fairly simple: all Jan really had to do was build a few farms and a barracks in the Hillsbrad Foothills. Still, doing so required her to spend a fair amount of time cutting down trees and mining for gold, and she also had a few nasty surprise attacks from the Orcs. Despite that, she managed to get through the first mission.
Although the first mission was slightly challenging, Jan decided to play in another mission. The second mission was harder and took longer to complete, but Jan still found the game enjoyable – and chose to play in another mission. Like the previous two missions, the third mission wasn't terribly hard, so Jan decided to move on to the fourth mission.
This mission was fairly hard. Jan grew frustrated with the Orcs constantly attacking her settlement, and it seemed that she didn't have enough resources to not only defend her settlement but to mount an offensive attack to destroy the Orcs' settlement. Still, Jan found the game quite fun. The CD audio provided lovely background music, and the graphics were pretty. Most importantly, though, Jan enjoyed building settlements and training large numbers of people to fight the Orcs. The game was getting quite hard and frustrating, but it was easy and enjoyable enough for it to still be engaging for Jan. Although it was hard for her to maintain her fleet of destroyers and defend her buildings near the Orcs' settlement, Jan slowly but surely made progress in the mission, and that made playing the game all the more worthwhile.
Eventually, Jan managed to complete the fourth mission. "Yes!" she cried – but quickly covered her mouth – fearful that she might wake up someone. What time was it, anyway? Jan was about to get up to check the time – but then remembered that the computer had its own clock. Jan quit Warcraft II and saw that the time was 1:05 AM. Her jaw dropped open in shock. Jan apparently had been playing for two and a half hours! Had she really been playing that long? Her parents would not be happy if they knew that she hadn't yet gone to bed.
Jan felt tempted to start playing again but decided to force herself to go to bed. She already was up later than her mother wanted, so she figured that it was best not to stay up any later. She didn't want to abuse her computer privileges or lose sleep. She had all summer to play Warcraft II and wanted to make sure she had enough energy to do other enjoyable activities.
Reluctantly, Jan removed the game disk from the CD-ROM drive and put it back in its case. Jan then shut down the computer, turned off all the lights downstairs, and quietly headed up to her bedroom – making sure that she didn't disturb her sisters as she changed into her nightwear and got into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she kept thinking about the cool settlements that she had made and her hard-fought victories against the Orcs. She could almost still hear the game music playing. Jan smiled a little. What a wonderful way to start her summer.