Farmalls VS Computers

I purchased my 1st computer in 1994. I had heard that these things were going to change the world.
I went to sears. Got one that the sales man said I needed. Took it home. After about 5 hrs got it set up. Turned it on and said. " OK change my life" Nothing happened. Oh it was running ok I guess. The Windows screen was there. A bunch of Icons.
After a hr or so I did figure out how to play Solitair. I think That was the only thing it did for the 1st month or so was play the games that came with it. Not a whole lot of life changing going on. Just Solitair.
I might have ended my computer life right there. Had it not been for a friend of mine. He had gotten a computer about the same time as me. He didnt really know any thing more than me but he did get a game installed that did not come with the machine. Pretty heady stuff in those days. You had to type in commands in DOS to get anything done like that. Way over my head.

Any way to make a long story short (er)
We found by reading the manual that came with the game that we could play each other over the phone.
I went out and got the game and knew I had a modem in my machine so we should be good to go.
I got the game installed on my machine and running!!! I followed the instructions to the letter in the manual. We then tried to connect via the phone line. The games were running the modem would dial out his would pick up. Then Error cannot connect. We tried over and over to get it to work to no avail. Reading the manual it said if your modems dont connect. "Just edit this line ( it gave some words to type) into the modem confic file modem.cfg".
With that sentence you have the real catch 22 to computers. The writer of the manual assumed that I knew how or what edit was also what a config file was. I knew nothing!!! about these things.
This made me real angry. I was disgusted that I did not know how to do any thing with my computer.
I also felt kind of stupid that this machine was getting the better of me. I decided that I was ether going to figure this thing out or chuck it out the door.
I purchased a book called DOS for dummies. Well I needed to know DOS and I was for sure a dummy.
Come to find out Edit is a command you typed at the DOS prompt and modem.cfg was the name of the file I needed.
With book in hand I opened a DOS session. At the prompt I typed. c:/doom edit modem.cfg
WALA there was the config file opened so I could type the line in that the manual had stated. I typed them in and saved it. Took all of 2 mins to do. Called my BRO got his fixed. We were playing inside of 5 mins.
Lesson learned. I read that book from cover to cover. I have read about 100 others after that. I now build my own computers to get what I want and have 6 others networked around the house for the wife and kids.
Moral is. Computers dont make you smarter they make you have to get smarter.

Do you (and all our readers) find the following to be true? In the days of the F-20 and H a tractor owner had to be a mechanic to keep things running. Now modern tractors almost run themselves but if (or when) they break a specialized expert is needed to fix them. In the early days of the PC a computer owner had to be a programmer to keep the computer running. Now computers do run themselves but if (or when) they break a specialized expert is needed to fix them.
Which way is better? A modern tractor and a modern computer certainly can do more work when they are working right than the old equipment could do. But when the new break it is much more trouble than when the old machines broke. Ainna hey?