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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!zehntel!normac!scott
From: scott@normac.UUCP (Scott Bryan)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: time to use your brains
Message-ID: <115@normac.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Nov-84 01:10:46 EST
Article-I.D.: normac.115
Posted: Sun Nov 25 01:10:46 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Nov-84 02:16:13 EST
References: <1668@ucf-cs.UUCP> <677@gloria.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: scott@unix.UUCP (Scott Bryan)
Organization: Normac, Lafayette, Ca.
Lines: 44
Summary: 

simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard) writes:
>Just a little theory...
>
>Noticing how kids seem to take to computing readily, while adults approach
>them with all kinds of trepidation, I remember the movies and TV shows
>we saw through the fifties up to the early eighties that included computers.
>As I recall, computers in these presentations were always large mainframes,
>towering over white-frocked, intellectual types who spouted tech-gibberish
>while the ponderous racks behind them vibrated and roared, and myriads of
>lights pulsed (always, lots of lights)!
>
>Even non-fiction presentations of computers tended to dramatize their
>power and complexity ("...and this machine here can perform nineteen
>zillion calculations every second, and make coffee at the same time, folks!")
>Little wonder then that many people flatly assumed that they were
>unfathomable wonders totally beyond any hope of comprehension, and that
>therefore, they are a threat of sorts.  It's a pretty fundamental human
>trait to fear things that cannot be understood and controlled.

What do want them to do, remake 2001 using a Macintosh instead of a HAL9000?
Scott Bryan
>
>Even when an obviously small and simple Apple, TRS-80, IBM or whatever
>(I have an original Altair, for those who remember that far back into
>history) sits before them on the table, the overwhelming stigma of the word
>"computer" creates some surprising blocks.
>
>Seems to me that one of the tricks to bringing the computer into the
>realm occupied by the automobile, television, VCR and Mr. Coffee in
>the minds of Joe and Jane Average, is to point out the false imagery they've
>developed and show that their home computer really doesn't do much of anything
>exceptional - just a small set of simple functions, very fast.
>
>
>-- 
>
>[     I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet     ]
>
>Ray Simard
>Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
>{ucbvax, ittvax!dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard
>
>...Though we may sometimes disagree,
>   You are still a friend to me!