Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmum.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watmum!cdshaw From: cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw) Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse,net.micro,net.micro.pc Subject: Re: Univ. of VT chooses AT&T pc's Message-ID: <108@watmum.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 15:18:07 EDT Article-I.D.: watmum.108 Posted: Mon Apr 29 15:18:07 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Apr-85 07:07:38 EDT References: <376@uvm-cs.UUCP> <285@h-sc1.UUCP> <164@mcc-db.UUCP> <4171@hlexa.UUCP> <1453@amdahl.UUCP> Reply-To: cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw) Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 55 Keywords: Corporate Moneybagging, University Cheapness Xref: watmath net.college:704 net.cse:371 net.micro:10176 net.micro.pc:3806 Summary: RIPOFF, or Crassness Knows No Bounds. I'd like to make a point which is rather obvious, but no one has mentioned yet. If the goal of a school is to get more (micro)computing power for its students, it can do it two ways. 1) Shell out its own hard bucks and buy a system (say a micro network, or a Unix box, etc). This system will cost the University money Right Now, and will be obsolete in 4 years, at least. The U. has to pay for maintenence for this system, as well as paying for operators, software support, an air-conditioned room, and all that other trash. This money could be spent elsewhere for computers for other uses, such as research, or for things like a jaccuzzi in every Prof's office :-)))). 2) Make the student shell out his own hard bucks and buy a system (say a micro). This system will cost the student money Right Now, and will be obsolete in 4 years, at least. The student has to pay for maintenence for this system, software support, and all that other trash. This money could be spent elsewhere for an education at a better institution, or for more important things, like beer, eh? The parallels in the text were intentional. Any university clearly wins financially if it goes the students-must-buy-brand-x route. A corporation selling computers knows this, probably, and also knows that it will sell many more machines to incoming students than it will sell to the University at one shot. The company is basically "set for life", if it is always seen to be meeting the current needs of the students, since there is guaranteed sales in the size of the technical-student body every year. The student is clearly the financial loser in a deal like this. He is also a loser educationally, since the exposure he gets to computer systems could easily be limited to only one system. I have seen graduates of one-system-only computer education, and they have a hard time transporting themselves to a new paradigm when they get into the "real" world. The question really is whether there is money available at all to get the equipment necessary. If there isn't, the personal-equipment route may be followed simply as a last resort, never mind social justice. Something can be said for restricting oneself to one system, since one only needs to do the learn-the-system work once. Learning 5 or 6 systems, with 5 or 6 editors and 5 or 6 Pascal compilers, and so on, is a lot of work. Some would say that this is needless work. One would hope, however, that in the process of learning the sixth editor, the experience gained in learning previous editors makes the learning very easy. The goal might be said to be "learning how to learn", given a multitude of systems. This, in my book, is the major goal of education in general. Chris Shaw, student at... University of Waterloo