Date : Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:38:41 +0200
From : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Electric Dreams last night.
Michael Firth wrote:
> It was interesting that after showing so much interest in programming the
> BBC at the "Computer Fair", everyone apart from the teenage boy seemed to
> lose all interest in doing things with it once they got it home.
Boys into programming, girls can't see the point. Just shows not a lot
changes. :-)
I was impressed, nonetheless, about how much they were getting from an
ancient (!) computer and the examples in the instruction manual. Kinda
makes you regret leaving all that behind for a single A3-sized
photo-diagram in case the COLOUR CODED plugs and sockets aren't quite
obvious enough...
Couldn't believe the stuff being spouted by the Sinclair advocate (god,
where did they find him!) about Beeb titles like "fun with geography" or
whatever. Um, Elite? Chuckie Egg? Perhaps one of the first Office Suites
ever put together for a home computer??? Clueless!
Still, the Acorn bloke got his own back by introducing the kids to
programming with a dead-easy MODE2 demo. You CAN program the Speccy, but
it is so painful that I never personally met anybody who actually did it
for fun.
Why was the Speccy so small? Didn't Sinclair have a larger one with
built-in tape and joystick? My memory is really fuzzy here, I only
remember a gaudy coloured keyboard on a black machine, and a tendency to
spit lines of coloured garbage onto the screen, which I believe is a
mostly-Spectrum trait...?
> they seemed to spend a lot of time in yesterday's programme basically
> saying "there was a lot of technology available, but it was all crap",
> which seemed very unfair.
A good amount of '80s tech WAS crap! Do you remember those big
headphone-radio things? A radio receiver on one ear and the batteries on
the other? Do you remember the Oric-1? (I have one! keyboard is icky)
> I think their claims that modern technology can just be plugged in and work
> was also very dubious - I think many people still have a lot of
> difficulties setting up a new TV, connecting up a new DVD player (or games
> console, or set-top box),
Never had a problem with any of that, even wired my own SCART leads for
in-and-out because cheap-crap British VCRs usually only have one SCART.
Mom, on the other hand...
I think a lot of it depends a lot on the person as well as the item.
Maybe this is reflected in the boys getting into the programming while
the girls just didn't get it. No doubt there is an element of social
conditioning (I ran in to that when I wanted to do cookery at school,
and kept on being told "no, boys do mechanics").
Maybe that's what the '80s were for - for conditioning all the
30-somethings to be able to wire a Digibox into... anything... without
breaking a sweat.
> with so much stuff in such a short time, and some of the connectivity
> wasn't what they were used to.
Most of the connectivity, I would imagine. I mean, do ANY modern games
consoles spit RF OUT? The older Digiboxen were one of the few digital
satellite receivers to bother (can't say for newer models). Oh, and I
don't have one DVD player with RF OUT. The closest I can get is CVBS,
but then most stuff still speaks composite, even if it is losing in
favour of funny little rectangular sockets.
Best wishes,
Rick.
--
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...