Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!ncar!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!NIEHS.BITNET!ALBRO
From: ALBRO@NIEHS.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: RE: Why Keep the //....
Message-ID: <8903112029.aa25730@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Date: 12 Mar 89 01:30:00 GMT
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Organization: The Internet
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jm7e@andrew.cmu.edu (arpa) { Jeremy Mereness } writes:

>The next generation will look at computers as appliances, things to be used
>but without a clue let alone interest in how they work.

In my 12-16 years I made film by spreading silver chloride/bromide in gelatin
on glass plates, to use in my pin-hole camera, to be developed in solutions
made from the raw chemicals.  I made crystal (galena) radios and my own test
equipment.  And, I learned to write BASIC and assembly programs on a II. Now
in my 40's to 50's, I still write programs thanks to the IIe and IIgs, but
I buy my camera, rarely if ever listen to the radio (but would buy one if I
did), and send my film to Eckerts to be developed.

This sort of thing is inevitable.  It happened with photography, radio, and
it's happening with computers.  There are still a few of us who subscribe
to Radio-Electronics, and if I had any use for black & white photographs I
would still develop them myself, but in general only a small minority is
going to delve into the nitty gritty of things once those things are fully
reliable and, in the case of personal computers, supplied with excellent
programs that took a team of professional programmers two years to write.
That's why most Jr.High & High Schools let kids use calculators.