A
COMPUTER
ENTHUSIASTS
LLDM^TOM
PRESIDENT: Mr M Munro
Tolophono: 703-363
SECRETARY: Mr D Rove
Telephone: 736-716
P.O.Box 16011
Wellington Atari Computer Enthusiasts
JULY, 1335
Dea r members,
Herewith the URGE 'news 1 et t€*r for July , 1385. Quite a lot has
happened over the last month, so lets rio into ? review of the Past
.and of the future.
THE “BITS RHP BYTES" SHOU
How ms ny sot to the show? Those who didn't fiisse-d the- ent ra.nc in a
s i a ht o f Coamodo re p 1y i n-3 second f i dd 1 e to Rtr i. fit'out time, ftt
last. Atari-‘s ever-present technical supe riority is be-ins complemented
by a Price advantage. The next six months or so will be Atari's, and
that -aives me a nice- warm feel ins. This happiness is- made- al l the- more
i n t e n s- e b e c a u. s e t ft e s o f t w a r e d r o u. -a h t o f t h e- 1 a st ye a r is- b r e a. k i n a -a. s-
t h e m a n u. f a c t u res r e a a. i n t- h e i r c o n f i d e n c e i n A t a r j •' f u. t n. re-. N o t
everythin* in the -aarden is rosy, but at least the aorse and
b 1 ack be r ry have been cu.t- back to s i ze 1
NEXT MEETING
Members are summoned once as a in to the "Loaves and Fishes" where.*
be-a inn in-a at 7.29 pm on the 14 fiu.-aust, minor "miracles" will be
performed. Scheduled so far are :
Ross Palmer's dissertation on Dos XL. This should be -aood : it was
Ross's assessment that Dos 2 was superior to Dos 3 that Persuaded your
committee to adhere to the earlier ope rat in-a system;
Karl Bette1heimvs explanation of how he uses "Atariwriter" in the
p r e p a r a t i o n o f 1 o n -a a r t i c 1 e s a n d t h e 1 i k e;
Demonstrations of the
am
■:;t club tape and disk as !
wcl 1 of some
commercial software- (
and
haven - ' t Prices a one- down
over recent
weeks ?)>
The ..i oy st i ck di a a nost
1 C:
paddle makins workshop-
(refer to the last-
n e w s 1 e t-1 e r f o r d e t a i 1 s-);
of course, the book and pro-aramme libaries will be there for raidin-a,
as will our new service to members, which is. :
THE CARTRIDGE LIBRARY
Your committee Promised, some months a so, to set up such a
library. Ron Pyne is in char as- and currently he has six cartridges
available for lend ins at f 5. Q0 per month < should one- be lost or
damaged then the borrower is- required to replace it). Available at
present are :
S p a c e I n v a d e r s
Mu.sic Com po se r
Com p ute r Chess
Missile Command
ft s- f. e r o i d s, a n d
Pit Stop
More will be added as funds Permit or as members donate
u. n d e r - u. s e d c -a. r t r 1 d a e s.
their old.
CLUB DISKS
The contents of Disk #7 are not known at present (.although the
new Atari Dos 02.3) will be on it) but we have’ every reason to believe
that another -good disk will be made available. I would very much like
to p ut 1 oca 1.1 y w r i 11 e n p ro a r am me s on ou r d i sk s , s o j, f a ny others wou 1 d
like to emulate Keith Hobde-n or Bernard Kerr.* then let me know. I can
not offer either fame or fortune but a free cony of the disk might be
suf f icient re-ward. . .
Copies of Past disks will be available at the meetins or from the
undersigned at 63 Cecil Rd. • We 11 i ns ton at Tly.00 each.
I should be -grateful to learn if there is a significant demand
for an "Educational" Disk". There are a number of -good Programmes
around that could feature 1 on such a disk.
OTHER MATTERS
Neil Upton will have blank disks for sale at prices that will
more than match those charged for "Le Floppies" by L V Martins.
Karl Lewis i ph 862 475) would like to buy an Atari 1820 colour
printer--'pl otter or another cheap Atari compatible printer.
Thsts it.' see you all on 14 August.'
D es R o w e b e c r e t a r y . 1
Editorial
This month I have used the SPeedscriPt 3.0 word processor from
Computes May 1985 issue. You shouldn't see anything differant about
the printing here.' but the use of it for writing artic 1 es is
excellent.
Y o u r editor has now sot a p rinte r o f his own. making the
compiling of the newsletter a much easier task. This also means that
contributions can now be sent to me on disk or ta. pc .* rather than
already printed. I don-'t mind which word processor you use to prepare
your articles, as SPeedscriPt 3.0 will handle the lot. By having the
newsletter coming off one printer, it should mean a more standard
f o r m a t, a. n d p r i n t f o n t a p p e a r i n g.
This does not mean that you can't send in magazine articles and
the like, as they make up a significant portion of the newsletter.
Also, Please don't get upset if your contribution does not appear
in the next newsletter. From time to time, I get a few articles build
ijn, .q-fid as we have a restriction ot approx 1’2 pages Per newsletter
( H n ij. h 1 <=■ i d e d ), n o t e v e r y t h i n g c a. n b e i n c 1 u d e d.
The cut-off for submissions is the fridgy one and a half weeks
before a club meeting, ie. the next cut-off is the 38th August.
Send your articles to me :
c/— Databank Systems Ltd
175 The Terrace
We 111 n-3 ton,
B ruce
Tinsley (Editor)
*r. . * k
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ti ■ v.. '. . v2K.- -■• ‘ ^ A
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•< 4 . -&• ' k#MjfeVv -*.3«§3|
' 2L .S-JbEmW' • *TSBSr
,&»s=5
■■ We have noticed that some of the most -interesting new _
atari oroorLs will not run on those 400/800's that have the
^' :ari ^ ® ■ _ 4 .U .0 »r»• pnm or the XL system to work as
"A" Rom.They require the B Rom or me ai_ sy
intended. -y * “
It’s no -fun buying a new program only to -find out that
your, not going to able to use it. Bo, it we -find enough
Interest !we'h try to get hold of "S" Roms for you. But
bo , nre we get to that Stage we’d like anyone w.th a ~ Rom
to phone Roger Shepherd (w. %-&6-64<? > so that he can as . a
■few questions about it.
How do you test your computer quickiy^ to find whether
vou have an a"A" or a "B" Rom? Simply type in PRINT FE-k
( / 55 r,o) If you get " 214" as your response, then you have an
••A” . ii*. ?4" - 4en you have a "B". If something else, you
may have a »C" , or hays found .nether reason to oal! Roger !
Mike Munro
LOST YOUR
SOFTWARE?
You need SOFT FINDER, the
composite index to articles
published in:
ANALOG COMPUTING
ANTIC
COMPUTE!
Eugene ACE Newsletter
Soft Finder is available as a data base on disk
or as a printed index.
Volume!: Feb-81 thru June-83.
Volume 2: Jul-83 thru Dec-84.
That’s right! In just two volumes you get
categorized, alphabetized references to
everything you ever wanted to know about
your Atari* computer. No more hunting ]
through sucks of magazines trying to find
that article you think (hope) you saw once
upon a time.
One very important feature of Soft Finder
is that entries for articles include references
to follow up corrections and improvements.
Only $12.00 per disk or $7.00 per printed
copy. Add $1 per item for foreign shipping.
•Atari is a trademark of Atari Corp.
VdllpV k 2660SWDeArtnond
Soft^ Corvallis, OR 97333
w-c-
(U.
JENNY* S BITS OF NEWS FOR AUGUST
15 play buttons for 1010 recorders sold very quickly. I shall get
more (the price is *£.90 including tax) but there will be a delay of
some weeks. This is poors I shall tell Monaco as much.
Replacement ribbon cartridges for Logitec printers are available at
*35.00 to club members.
As I have printer paper* and don’t know whether Chris followed up the
letter in last month’s newsletter* I’ll bring some packets of 250
sheets to the club meeting at about the same prices *7.50 for 250
sheets. Best to ring me beforehand if you need some.
With luck I’ll have an AXIOM direct-connect DM printer to demonstrate
by the September meeting.
Logo is apparently still on sale without manuals. Don’t buy it: it
should soon be available with manuals. But if you have it already
and want to photocopy the manuals or buy alternative books, ask me
for help.
Those who were dismayed to hear that memory upgrades for the 600XL
were going off the market should note that our good friends at
Computer Palace are advertising a Microbits 64K module as a Special
at *89.95(US). Microbits products are good (some of us have their
interface) and the NZ dollar is in good heart.
Here is a little history of my company, Classroom Computers Ltd,
for the benefit of neu members.
Hhen several families got together at the end of 1981 and
ordered Atari computers, I Has the one uho subsequently went into the
educational languages, first PILOT and then Logo ; bought books and
Logo journals from the US and later from British publishers-, and
began in September 1983 to demonstrate Atari computers and Logo in
primary schools as a registered retailer. Hhile I don't carry a
range of stock as my competitors do, I try to make up for this in
personal service, especially in the educational field. I'm alnays
glad to help club members - and if your children's primary school
starts to talk about computers, you are urged to give them a little
push in my direction.
P — CLASSROOM COMPUTERS LTD.,
Jenny Chisholm f r 13 WAY, WILTON,
729.866 { \ lyci , iwcTfikl G TFI
- t
r
if
THE #1 MAGAZINE FOR ATARI' COMPUTER OWNERS
TUB NEW YORK TIMES
TUESDAY. IULY l mS
PERIPHERALS
Miniature Hard Drive Fits on a Card
By PETER H. LEWIS
E VEN in the constantly shrink¬
ing world of computers,
where a silicon chip the size
of a fingernail can be etched
with electronic pathways more com¬
plex than a street map of New York
City, some technological feats are as¬
tonishing. .
The latest achievement in this
realm is a miniaturized 10-megabyte
hard disk drive that fits on a standard
plug-in board, ready to be slipped into
any expansion slot on an I.B.M. PC or
compatible computer.
It is as if someone had found a way
to fit a Boeing 767 into a standard one-
car garage. Hard disks can fly faster
and carry much more data than
floppy disks, but just a few years ago
they took up more space than the
computers they served.
This tiny new hard drive system,
called the Hardcard. was developed
by Plus Development Corporation
(1778 McCarthy Boulevard, Milpitas,
Calif. 95035, telephone 408-946-3700).
Company officials say it will be on the
market in October with a suggested
price of $1,095.
The Hardcard consists of a three-
and-a-half-inch hard disk drive unit
that takes up half the 13-inch by 4-inch
plug-in card, yet it is only one inch
thick, so it can snuggle between any
other boards in a computer’s row of
internal expansion slots. The rest of
the card is given over to the elec¬
tronic controllers that negotiate traf¬
fic between the minidrive and the
mother machine. The whole package
weighs just two pounds and is light¬
weight in power consumption as well.
It is designed to be a strong welter¬
weight in performance, however, zip¬
ping through data faster than the
bulkier hard drives that are standard
on the I.B.M. PC XT.
According to early reports, the
Hardcard is simple to install. Unlike
conventional hard drive units, it re¬
quires no extra hardware, no wiring,
no switch-throwing and no magical
incantations about formatting and
partitioning, the usual bugaboos of
hard disks. The software instructions
that tell the computer how to use the
small but powerful new storage de¬
vice are built in, so the user simply
boots it up—hits the buttons that load
the program into the machine’s mem¬
ory — and gets ready for takeoff.
Once installed, there is no need to use
a special boot disk each time the ma¬
chine is turned on.
A built-in file management pro¬
gram enables users to sort through
the 10 megabytes of data — equal to
about 6,000 typed, double-spaced
pages — quickly and easily.
The prospect of turning a PC into
an XT, or doubling the storage ca¬
pacity of an XT, or plugging a hard
drive into a Compaq portable for less
than $1,100 is appealing. But even
more tantalizing is the prospect that
this tiny hard disk drive may soon be
built into laptop computers.
Down, Down, Down _
While the miniaturization of com¬
puters is impressive, size is only one
aspect of the amazing advances in the
computer industry.
In their book “Insights Into Per¬
sonal Computers’’ ($29.50 from IEEE
Press, the publishing wing of the In¬
stitute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers). Amar Gupta and Hoo-
Min D. Toong of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology calculated
that each year since 1960 the price of
computer chips has fallen by 25 per¬
cent and the cost of memory by 40
percent; while speed has increased
by a factor of 200. In the same period,
the overall cost, energy consumption
and size of computers of equal power
have declined by a factor of 10,000.
“If the aircraft industry had
evolved a spectacularly as the com¬
puter industry over the past 25
years,” the authors write, “a Boeing
767 would cost $500 today, and it
would circle the globe in 20 minutes
on five gallons of fuel.”
^What Socrates Might Say 2 - „■ ;
abbut Computere! -
\ _vgducatpfshayejqnaj»ns?d the power of
c theTidfiipjtSrTcfirevolutionize Jheir prof es-
-»skM^butthey<to not all embrap lt^wfth en-
JThusSinji.lt was the" fame jvitn ttse begin¬
nings of the book, in ancient Athens when
writing was the exciting new technology, the
philosopher Socrates warned his students
that the written word would create forgetful¬
ness in the learners’ souls and cause them
to lose their memories. Practicing what he
preached, Socrates never wrote a line. His
works might never have had the monumental
impact they did if his admirers had not disre¬
garded his strictures against writing. Perhaps
some of today's professors with little regard
for the computer will be remembered in the
future only because their words and thoughts
are accessible through computerized data
banks.”
Edward Cornish in Los Angeles Times
7 Dec 84, p. 8, Pt. V-A [pd 0511j]
Home-Computer Concerns
Search for a
By John Marcom Jr.
Special to The Asian Wall Stkeet Journal
CHICAGO — When was the last time a
computer game made you cry? Charlie
Kellner, a computer programmer, says that
question illustrates the challenge in
restoring the sizzle to the home-computer
business.
Mr. Kellner, who develops new games
for Lucasfilm Ltd., thinks the answer lies in
more elaborate and realistic animation,
with complex characters who do unexpected
things and “involve" players.
“We want to create a world of much
wider complexity, like a 90-minute movie
experience,” he says. “It’s one thing to
compete with video games, but it’s quite
another to compete with movies.”
Restoring sizzle preoccupies home-
computer makers, who turned out in consid¬
erably diminished force for the semi-annual
Consumer Electronics Show here this week.
The industry group sponsoring the show
expects home-computer sales to drop 9%
this year to 4.5 million, and those attending
the show found little among the wares on
display or the gossip circulating on the floor
to suggest an imminent turnaround.
But the companies that hang on for a
year or two might get the kind of help Mr.
Kellner is talking about — from Japan.
Japan’s electronics industry is working on a
range of video and digital audio gear that
would allow consumers to use computers to
play and work with much more realistic
sound and pictures — and do it all using a
single system of components.
Many within the industry envision a
gradual convergence of home-electronics
products, this year valued at $32 billion at
retail, into one gigantic business. By about
1999, PaineWebber Inc. analyst Lee S. Isgur
expects a tidal wave “that will wash over
all that has gone before and sweep various
unrelated items into a single entity.”
An Easy Versatility
Consumers eventually could switch from
music to video-taped movies to computer
programs much as they switch from FM to
records to tapes on a hi-fi component sys¬
tem. Mr. Isgur regards a $1,200 Pioneer
Electronic Corp. machine that can play
both the company's LaserVision videodisks
and compact digital audio disks as the first
of a new generation of products. The ma¬
chine comes with an outlet for connecting a
personal computer — although Pioneer isn’t
promoting any computer features.
A big first step toward, making comput¬
ers a part of these systems is expected
within a year: accessories that allow com¬
puters to read compact disks. The same
hard plastic disk used by the new digital
audio players can store more than 500
million pieces of computerized information,
hundreds of times more than the largest
floppy disks used by computers today.
Little Sizzle
i
They will be read by the new accessories
— maybe eventually by machines that can
play audio disks, videodisks and software j
disks interchangeably. f
Some software companies are working j
on compact-disk products. Spinnaker i
Software Corp. expects compact disks to
allow it to offer more-realistic programs,
adding hundreds of still video images and
resonant digital sounds to computer games.
The disks mark "the real beginning of the
whole process of merging into one medi¬
um." says Spinnaker Chairman William H.
Bowman.
Software companies already have mar¬
ried text and computer graphics to create
what they call “interactive" fiction, in
which players — readers — work out
mysteries and science-fiction adventures !
from clues given by the computer. The next
step, with better video pictures and fancier
sound, and more powerful computers and
software, is the interactive movie.
Cautious Japanese
Though Japan's lock on audio and video
home-electronics products could give it an
edge in the computers that work with it.
Japanese companies are being coy about
computers.
The Japanese-made MSX computers
shown at the winter electronics show in Las
Vegas probably won’t be sold in the U.S., j
concedes Kazuhiko Nishi, a Microsoft Corp. (
executive who promoted MSX software as a
standard for Japanese companies. j
Sony Corp. says U.S. market conditions
aren't auspicious. “We still don’t know what
is the future of the home computer,” says
president Norio Ohga.
But Spinnaker’s Mr. Bowman thinks the
Japanese are preparing to pounce, with
computers that serve as one more compo¬
nent in complete home-entertainment
systems. I
The spread of stereo television broad¬
casting in the U.S. may generate strong
replacement demand for TVs, offering Ja¬
panese makers a chance to push their
concept of components. Component TVs,
already being sold by most makers, can
plug into compact disk players and comput¬
ers as well as stereo amplifiers and
speakers. !
Such items wouldn’t make existing ;
equipment obsolete overnight because most
products in recent years have been designed
to work as components. The newest of the
gadgets that plug into the integrated sys¬
tems cost more than $1,000 but as with
previous Japanese-developed products,
prices are expected to plummet as sales
grow.
Some disk players are down to less than
S200 from near $1,000 two years ago, and ;
U.S. sales are expected^to triple to 600,000
this year.
1
V
IBM Claims Advcmce
In Speech Computers
& »» .
Special to Tub Akian Wall Street Jotwnal
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS. New York -
International Business Machines Corp.
said its scientists here achieved “a major
advance" in computer speech recognition
that could be used in creating business
documents.
The computer giant, based in Armonk,
said users of the experimental system
speak — with a short pause between words.
— into a microphone linked to a computer"
screen. The system contains a 5,000-word
business vocabulary,' and can identify
more than 95% of the words spoken if they
are in the vocabulary. The words then are
displayed on the, screen for editing by
voice or keyboard. i‘ *> ■ !
The system “trains" itself by listening
to the user read a standard text for 20
minutes. It can usually distinguish be¬
tween similar words, such as "to,”
“too," and “two,” from the context in
which they are used, IBM said.
A spokesman declined to predict when
the experimental system might become
commercially available.
KAY—Mathematics for Computer
Programmers.
C (56214-0)
CHRISTINE BENEDYK KAY, M.S., DeVry
Institute of Technology (304 pp., 19S4)
Covers those aspects of mathematics needed
by a programmer from a computer-science view¬
point. Aims to develop understanding of mathe¬
matical concepts so that readers can develop
algorithms for computerized calculanons.
Avoids rigorous formulas and includes notations
geared to programmers, not mathematicians.
Stressing step-by-step algorithm development,
this text develops flowcharting as a program¬
ming tool. Includes sample problems, chapter
questions, and graphs. TEACHER’S MANUAL
AND SOLUTIONS MANUAL ARE AVAILABLE
CONTENTS: NUMBER SYSTEMS:
Sets. Integer and Real Number Sets. Format
Arithmetic. ALGORITHMS: Solving Problems
Using Input, Process, and Output. Algorithms.
Flowcharts. ALGEBRAIC APPLICATIONS
FOR PROGRAMMING: Language of Algebra.
Algebraic Expressions of “Not Equal.” Expo¬
nents. Equations. ADVANCED ALGEBRA
CONCEPTS. Quadratic Equations, linear
Equations. Linear Programming. Functions. Se¬
quence and Subscripted Variables. Matrices.
BINARY SYSTEMS: Number Base Concepts.
Binary, Octal, and Hexadecimal Numbers. Com¬
puter Codes. BOOLEAN ALGEBRA CON¬
CEPTS: Mathematical Logic. Boolean Aigebra
and Computer Logic.
THE HEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1995
Escapist Software
By PETER H. LEWIS
Golden Oldies Already
They just don’t make software like
they used to. For those who remem¬
ber how they used to make it, this is
welcome news. Still, there are some
wistful souls who yearn for the good
old days of the personal computer in¬
dustry’s infancy, and for them there
is - “Computer Software Classics,
Golden Oldies Volume One” ($29.95
for I.B.M. PC and compatibles, Apple
II series. Atari and Commodore,
from Software Country, 270 North
Canon Drive, No. 1297, Beverly Hills,
Calif. 90210, telephone 213-278-8450).
This floppy disk and paperback
book combination brings together
four great “hacks” that excited the
imaginations of early hobbyists.
9Pong, created by A1 Alcorn in
1972, is the • granddaddy of video
games. By today’s standards it is
crude, simply two paddles that can be
moved up ami down to swat a dot of
light back and forth, but after all
these years it is still addictive. It
plays reasonably well on a mono¬
chrome monitor even without a
graphics card or joysticks.
9 Adventure, created by Will
Crowther and Don Woods, was the
first popular interactive fiction
game. The computer creates an
elaborate fantasy world of dark
caves, mazes, treasures, pirates,
wicked trolls and other hazards, and
the player enters and moves about
within the story through a series of
two-word, verb-noun commands,
such as “Go south” or “Open door.”
<ILife, created by John Horton Con¬
way in 1970, is a game so alluring that
the careers of many computer gen¬
iuses were derailed for months at a
time as they became obsessed with
the theory and artistic beauty of it.
«JEliza was created by Dr. Joseph
Weizenbaum of the Massachusetts In¬
stitute of Technology in 1966 as an ex¬
periment in artificial intelligence, in
this case mimicking *a Rogerian
therapist. Here is a transcript of a re¬
cent session with Eliza:
Eliza: “How do you do? Please tell
me your problem.”
)/’m a Cubs fan.
“Do you believe it’s normal to be a
I Cubs fan?”
)It seems masochistic.
"Please don’t be so short with me.”
)f'm sorry. I'm on deadline.
“Do you enjoy being sorry?”
)Do you enjoy being a stupid com¬
puter?
“Do computers worry you?”
)Yes. Goodbye.
"Goodbye. That will be $75,
please.”
The diskette also includes a “panic
button” that, when the boss appears
unexpectedly, will instantly wipe the
games off the screen .and replace
them with a dummy spreadsheet.
The Computer Cottage Industry Hysteria
Telecommuting Won’t Destroy Unions, or Solve Your Babysitter Problems
By David H. Rothman
I F ANY CLERICAL worker is 100 per¬
cent gung-ho on working at home, it
should be Yvonne Rice of Waldorf.
At least five times a week — often more
— she gets up at dawn, sits down at a com¬
puter terminal linked by telephone to Blue
Cross-Blue Shield in downtown Washington
and, without leaving her house, keys in 400
to 700 insurance forms a day.
Rice earns about $25,000 a year for work¬
ing about 55 hours a week. She saves on gas,
clothes, lunches and the psychic wear-and-
tear of commuting. Indeed, Blue Cross-Blue
Shield even trotted her out for the “Today
Show” to defend the growing “telecommut¬
ing” movement.
For all of that. Rice is not altogether satis¬
fied with her arrangement. And the AFL-
David Rothman, a Washington writer, is the
author of "The Silicon Jungle ”
CIO is growing increasingly worried that
Rice, and potentially millions of other work¬
ers like her, would be forced to turn their
electronic cottages into electronic sweat¬
shops. According to one informed estimate,
up to 30,000 workers may be telecommut¬
ing, and their numbers are expected to grow
• rapidly.
The AFL-CIO’s position is that electronic
home work should be banned. A 1983 reso¬
lution adopted by the union’s constitutional
convention called for “an early ban on com¬
puter homework by the Department of
Labor. . . .” The resolution claimed that
computers would encourage piecework,
drive wages down, increase the risk of em¬
ploye exploitation, make it harder to ensure
safe working conditions, reduce the likeli¬
hood of health and pension benefits and in¬
crease the chances that child labor laws will
be violated.
Although Rice is not sympathetic to the
union position — “I was brought up antiun¬
ion,” she says — she is not entirely happy in
her work. She toils 10 or 11 hours weekdays
and four on Saturday. But in three years, she
hasn’t gotten one raise even though “I work-
my rear end off and do twice as much as
someone in an office.” Her pay per form: 161
c ents. And Blue Cross-Blue Shield charges
her $2,400 annually for the computer termi-^
nal that it requires her to rent from them. 1
Yvonne Rice is a good example of both the
promises and perils of this new system.;
Telecommuting is like the H-bomb. If tech¬
nology allows something to happen, sooner
or later it probably will. Unlike nuclear,
weapons, however, telecommuting will be a
blessing — if employers, unions and politi¬
cians don’t panic, and if workers get their
share of the benefits. 1
C ontrary to the AFL-CIO’s fears, tele¬
commuting could be a real boon to
employe and employers alike. Under
the right circumstances, even savvy unions
could come out ahead, if they understood
that the economics are often just too good to
ignore — especially at bargaining time.
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Preventive Maintenance
For an Aging Computer
By ERIK SANDBERG-DIMENT
T HOSE millions of personal
computers purchased over
the last couple of years are
beginning to enter middle
age. A microcomputer generation is
as brief as its prefix. After one of
these computers has seen two or
three years of use, cataracts begin to
cloud the monitor, disk drives sag and
a slight palsy of the keyboard sets in.
Generally electronic technology
leaps ahead of itself so rapidly that
the machine never does reach old
age, at least not in public. Long be¬
fore that it is consigned either to the
closet or to a salesman as a trade-in
on a new Goldcircuit IV with hyper-
disks.
So to date the socioeconomic
phases of computer ownership have
been limited to two: brand-newness,
and the soon-after familiarity that
comes with having run half a dozen
programs often enough to avoid most
beginner’s errors automatically. In
order to extend this relatively tran¬
quil phase, a certain amount of up¬
keep is in order.
Go through the indexes of any 100
computer books for beginners (any
that have indexes, that is) at random,
and chances are that not once will you
come across the word “mainte¬
nance.” The implication is that when
you enter computerdom you enter a
perfect world where nothing breaks
down. It is true that electronic com¬
ponents are more reliable than me¬
chanical ones, which are subject to
the wear and tear of friction. But it
does not follow that electronic ele¬
ments are eternal.
Preventive computer maintenance,
like that for an automobile, falls
pretty much into two categories, dis¬
tinguished by the amount of skill re¬
quired. Basic tasks such as checking
the air pressure of the car tires or
cleaning the computer’s keyboard
even a mechanical klutz like me can
perform without difficulty. Disas¬
sembling the disk drives in order to
cledn their circuit boards and replac¬
ing the head pads, undertakings akin
to putting in new piston rings, de¬
mand a much greater technical profi¬
ciency.
The required expertise is certainly
not unconquerable, but acquiring it is
something most of us would probably
not consider a cost-effective use of
time unless, perhaps, we viewed it as
a learning experience. If you are in¬
terested in that aspect of the affair,
"The Plain English Repair and Main¬
tenance Guide for Home Comput¬
ers,” by Henry F. Beechhold (Simon
and Schuster, $14.%), is an excellent
place to start your self-education.
If you are not inclined toward ad¬
vanced computer mechanics, do at
least pick up a vacuum cleaner occa¬
sionally. Dust is one of the most de¬
structive elements in the microcom¬
puter environment. Using a small,
soft brush attachment, vacuum your
computer's keyboard. Dusting it with
a cloth simply will not remove all the
minute panicles aetermineo to mi¬
grate down between the keys and the
keyboard case. At worst minuscule
specks of din can interfere with the
functioning of the electronic compo¬
nents of the keyboard. More likely
they will content themselves with
slowly gumming up the me chanica l
works, stiffening the feel of die key¬
board.
While we’re on the subject of un¬
wanted dust particles, don’t put one of
those ionizers, or electronic air puri¬
fiers, in the same room with your
computer. These units charge the
dust in their vicinity electrically so
that it clings to surfaces. The air is
cleansed at the cost of depositing
those powdery panicles in greater
quantity and much more stubbornly
on your machine.
Dust will settle most persistently on
your computer in the vicinity of the
cooling slots, if your machine has a
fan. The cooling fans of most comput- ,
ers are of the exhaust variety. As thev 1
pull the air heated by the electronic j
components out of the case, the cooler 1
external air, dust and all, seeps in i
through the cracks and the vents de- 1
signed with that air flow in mind.
E XHAUST fans are more effec¬
tive than the intake variety
for cooling computers. How¬
ever, they entail a modifica¬
tion in most people’s housecleaning
approach, for vacuuming up the dust
around the most obvious place, the
fan housing, does little to help keep
the machine pristine. What one needs
to do instead is to concentrate on the
assembly seams where the computer
case slides on and off, the ventlike ■
openings obviously designed to facili-'
tate internal air flow and, in most '
cases, the back panel, where the en¬
trails of the machine are exposed
through screw holes, cable outlets
. and expansion board slots. It is also I
important to vacuum around the out- '
side of the disk drives, potentially one !
of the dustiest areas of any computer. '
Like consoles and keyboards, print¬
ers, too, gather dust. They attract
piles of paper fragments as well. A
good habit to adopt is cleaning out the
printer every time you change rib¬
bons. This puts the job on a regulated,
when-needed basis.
The manual accompanying your
printer should outline the steps to be
followed in removing the enclosure
shell. Once that is off, you should be
able to use a can of compressed air,
available at photographic supply
stores, to blast the din and the paper
out from hard-to-reach comers. Don’t
use the vacuum cleaner in its blower
mode. The unfiltered air would only
add dust.
Printing elements such as daisy
wheels or type balls should be individ¬
ually cleaned, again following the in¬
structions for the type and model of
machine you have. After the printer
has been thoroughly cleaned, any me¬
chanical parts such as the print head
rod should be lubr.cated according to
the recommendations of the manual.
Before you put the vacuum cleaner
away, go over the monitor with the
dusting attachment as well. Also
cleaning the screen with a glass
cleaner often does wonders for the
image, restoring a brightness and
clarity you may have forgotten it was
capable of producing.
On an older monitor you may no¬
tice, especially after your thorough
cleaning, a darkening of the screen in
areas where text is normally dis¬
played. In an extreme case shadowy
letters may appear, even when the
monitor is turned off. These “visual
echoes” result when a given display
is projected for too long; the picture-
producing electron beam can bum
the image into the phosphorus of the
screen.
Leaving the computer on if you are
going to step away from it for a 10-
minute coffee break or even an hour-
long lunch produces less wear and
tear than does flicking the switch off
and on repeatedly in the course of a
day. The opposite holds true for the
monitor, however. Leaving it on with
the same image an view for even 10
minutes can decrease the life expect¬
ancy of the tube. Continuous long
periods of fixed display will certainly
diminish future picture clarity.
As a preventive measure against
such bum-in, cultivate the habit of
turning the brightness control on the
monitor all the way down when you j
take even a short break from your
computer work. If you are running a
program like pfs: write in which the
brightness of the type can be obliter¬
ated by the brightness control but
margin-defining borders and such re- j
main highlighted on the screen, turn i
off the monitor. |
Along the same lines, that rarely i
seen and much underused accessory, . I
the dust cover, is a really worthwhile
investment. Cover your computer
whenever it is not in use (though not,
of course, when you’ve left it on be-
tween-times). You are apt to save
considerable aggravation and repair
costs in the future — not to mention
vacu uming time.
' EDUCATION _ itf. Jft/tsr.
. Interview: Seymour Papert on Computers
By EDWARD B. FISKE
S EYMOUR PAPERT, a profes¬
sor of mathematics and
education at the Massachu¬
setts Institute of Technology,
- - is a major pioneer in the use of com¬
puters in elementary and secondary
. schools. Mr. Papert, a student of the
- late Swiss educator and psychologist
- - Jean Piaget, is the creator of LOGO,
the computer language most widely
I used with young children. His writ¬
ings, including his book “Mind-
storms,” published by Basic Books,
have bad considerable Influence
among educators in this country. Mr.
Papert recently discussed his views
on computers and education in an in¬
terview. Following are e xc e r pt s from
that discussion:
Q. What is your Impression
about die way computers are
being used in most elementary
schools today?
They’re not being used very much.
Across the country, there’s about one
computer for 70 children, and you
can’t do very much with that. Imag-
— ine that writing had just been invent-
_ed, and somebody said, “Let’s take it
easy. We’ll start by putting one pencil
in each classroom.” The idea at one
computer In each classroom is abort
as absurd as one pencil in each class¬
room.
Q. How do you describe LOGO?
LOGO is a program, which is to say
it’s a way of making the computer do
what you want it to do. LOGO gives a
child the possibility of exploring the
power of the computer and mastery
over it. You frequently see children
work for many weeks an a complex
programming project. This involves
planning, making different parts of
Continued on Page C
Continued From Page Cl
the project, putting them together.
That is quite unusual, since our
schools do not normally give elemen¬
tary schoolchildren the opportunity to
-work for a long time on a complex
project. Programming does.
Q. Can you give a very specific
example?
Make your simulation of the space
shuttle. You have to design the shape, -
make it move, make the rockets fire.
It gets up to the sky, takes off in an
orbit and eventually lands. In the
course of doing that you have to
worry about bow to describe the
movement of the shuttle and the stars
in the background. All of this has a lot
of content and a lot of challenge. If
you ask the child “What are you
doing?" the answer you will get is, J
“I’m drawing something beautiful” i
or "I’m making a space shuttle.” You
won’t get the answer “I’m doing
mathematics,” but that’s what’s hap¬
pening. And this is where it’s funda¬
mentally different from a traditional
. curriculum. There isn’t the Balkani¬
zation of knowledge which makes
mathematics one little compartment,
art another, music another, science
another and so forth. j
Q. How about these other aca-
■ denote areas?
The mechanics of writing is a terri- 1
hie chore, so young children don’t do
much. The word processor makes it
easy to play with language, to cor¬
rect, to experiment with a different
form, to see your ^product neatly
typed out in the form you can be
proud of instead of it being a mess. Or
take social studies. The computer
makes it possible for very young chil- j
dren to manipulate data about society j
and get a grasp on the way social—j
movements were formed. You can
also use the computer to simulate the
economy or the geography of the
planet. It allows children to take con¬
trol and to manipulate kinds of knowl¬
edge that have been totally bookish in
the past. And then, of course, there
are the sciences.
Q. Explain.
What’s most important in physics is
the laws of motion — how they affect
the stars, atoms, gravity — but it’s al¬
most impossible to study this even in
high school because the mathematics
is just too complicated. Or was until
the computer. With the computer it’s
now possible for elementary school-
children to manipulate motion in
quite a formal way. Moving objects
on the screen can be related, say, to
throwing balls, so that what is funda¬
mental in science can be brought into
relationship with what is most natu¬
ral to children — moving about.
Q. What about the cost of all
this? Pencils were a lot cheaper.
Computers cost more than pencils,
but they cost a lot less than the
wasted time of teachers or the conse¬
quences of children who are turned
off by schools, drop out and end up
with drugs. In New York it costs
about $40,000 of taxpayer money to
educate each child for the whole area.
You can go to the stores and buy a
pretty powerful computer for less
than a thousand dollars.
Q. What will it take to get from
the single-pencil approach to a
_ computer-Intensive_environ¬
ment?
I’m trying to create a couple of
high-density schools where children
can learn in an environment of free
access to technology. That’s one side
of it. The other side of it is to rethink
the subject matters we are dealing
with. We need to bring real physi¬
cists, real artists, real writers into
the process of redesigning the activi¬
ties of children.
Q. Didn’t we go through that
right after Sputnik? The oew
math and the various science
curriculums of the time did not
turn out to be a very happy ex¬
perience.
True, but then we had one half of it
because they went in absolutely the
opposite direction. The emphasis
there was on making mathematics a
very pure — a very logical — subject.
So mathematics, which was already
an alienated subject, became even
more alienated. The computer en¬
ables us to go in the opposite direc¬
tion, making it much more concrete
and personal. We’re getting a second
chance.
Q. Boys tend to be more inter¬
ested In computers than girls. Is
that something that troubles you?
It does trouble me, anditka reflec¬
tion of the general phenomenon. It’s
not the computer as such that’s more
attractive to the boys than to girls.
It’s the fact that the computer comes
out of a male technological, techno¬
cratic, white-dominated culture. The j
computer as we know it was made by
engineers who like to t hink in a very
systematic, organized, top-down,
highly planned way.
Not everybody likes to think like
that, but science and mathematics in¬
struction in our schools is powerfully
biased against people with a more
artist-like style of thinking. They
react against a culture that has no
room for intuition, no empathy, no
communication about what you’re
doing. They react against a culture
where the emphasis is on linear think¬
ing, on individual work and on mak¬
ing a product that wracks rather than a
product that you can talk about with
other people..
The computer, though, allows you
to approach technical subjects, and '
mathematical ones too, more like the
artist who creates by a negotiation of
the object you’re trying to create.
There’s no incompatibility between
that intuitive kind of thinking and
being able to do mathematics in a
very creative way. We’re making
pockets of computer culture where j
learning is very personalized, where j
you can build up from the bottom and j
still structure it from the top. You can '
make something and change it. You j
can let it grow the way a painting on j
the canvas grows in a kind of negotia- j
tion between you and the product. |
• »%«*•* * I
| Start
Earlier
eivMkMMliitH
(■uittilW
EXPOSED! UNRELEASED ATARI SOFTWARE
Tl»c “ JJ" Atari had d»uy> acquired and developed software that never saw the light of day, and it appears
that the new Atari Gap. now has to decide whether to release some of it, or not.
These three educational pieces were spotted in their “ready
to go” packages, but their destination—the market or the scrapper
—may be announced in January, at the Winter CES (Las Vfegas).
The Market Place, for 8- to 13-year-olds, is a social studies
simulation wliete you “run your own business,” competing and
learning the laws of economics. In Pre-Reading, youngsters 4
to 7 are taught pre-reading skills through alphabet games—
matching letters and pictures. Counting, also tor 4- to .-year-
olds, teaches basic addition.
Says Australian Expert
By DA\T KING
Children should
become familiar with
computers as early as
possible, according to
an Australian expert
on educational com¬
puting, Mrs Liddy
Nevile.
A child could not use a
romputer properly if he. or
;he. was introduced to it at
i stage later than when
iteracy and numeracy
ikiils were being acquired,
said Mrs Nevile when she i
visited Auckland last week. 1
Failure to teach children
how to use computers at an
early age was “a bit like
saying we can teach chil¬
dren to write when they’ve
finished school or are in a
secondary school,” she said.
Great Deal
That was. why she thought
it was important that com¬
puters came into the class¬
rooms as teaching tools and
were accepted naturally as
such by the children.
There was even a project
in Australia which was con¬
sidering the computing
needs of children between
the ages of 4 and 7.
Those were the children,
she said, who "really are
not’ well catered for and yet
could do a*great deal with a:
computer."I
Mrs Nevile is. vice-presi-j
dent of the Computer Edu-.
cation Group-of Victoria
and teaches in a primary
school in Melbourne. She
also works on the develop¬
ment of computer educa¬
tion systems in Australia
with the support of the
National Computer Educa¬
tion Evaluation team at
Deakin University.
Problems
She was invited to visit
New Zealand by Barson
Computers NZ Ltd to give a
series of lectures on the use
of computers in, primary
schools.
. Discussing that topic in
an interview with the Sew
Zealand Herald. Mrs
- Nevile said she had used
((■C
om
pui
er
CD
€
M
with writing and read-
„ indirectly.
[ “One of the problems
[children have is that ifthey
have something to say. they
cannot dream up how to
! write, and they cannot
dream up what the letters
: look like even, but they can
pick them off a keyboard
quite easily." she said.
When the children had
written something on the
computer screen it sud¬
denly looked real to them.
It looked like the things
they read in books. Teach¬
ing children to write at a
level which in some way
compared with what they
tread was a big step.
The children could not do
as well with a pen because
their co-ordination was
poor.
Confidence
Mrs Nevile said the con¬
fidence the children subse-
[quently gained grew from
the ability to see writing as
something which was pro¬
duced by a process starting
with an idea.
They learned to develop
a piece of text rather than
write it the first time round,
said Mrs Nevile. who
thought that authors tended :
to create their works in
much the same way.
Mrs Nevile was quick to
say that fundamental
handwriting skills would
not be threatened by the
children's use of computers.
Experience had shown
that if the children used
computers as tools they
learned the strengths and
limitations of the machines.
Writing
“The fact that they have
to use a pencil does not
seem to worry’ them." she
said. "They still have the
confidence to approach the
task. Somehow this confid¬
ence and knowledge of
their own ability makes
them do a better job."
It was quite uncanny to
watch children write more
neatly after doing word pro¬
cessing on a computer. And
they are better at express¬
ing themselves.
A child's ability to come
to grips with concepts after
becoming familiar with
computers was demon-
strated very well in mathe¬
matics.
The Australian experi¬
ence was that children who
had learned to use a com¬
puter properly at primary
scTlool attacked secondary-
school mathematics with
more enthusiasm than their
predecessors.
"They understand the
concepts and how they
relate to each other and
how you build up concepts."
said Mrs Nevile.
Power
She said studies in Aus-.j
tralia confirmed what MIT l
researener. Seymour
Papert. postulated in his
book Windstorms about a
child's need for the feeling
of power while learning.
“1 think the attitude of
children to learning is about
the most critical thing."
said Mrs Nevile.
Children who used com¬
puters tended to think that
I every problem was just a
code to crack and they
knew they could crack it if
they went the right way
about the task.
The attitude stimulated
their will to learn.
What a lot of teaching
told children was they were
B- people and could not
solve problems so they did
not trv. They just gave up.
If a’ child was once given [
a real experience of crack- i
ing a code with their own j
inventiveness then they.
suddenly got the feeling
that if they were again in¬
ventive they could crack j
another code. j
Teachers 1
Mrs Nevile said she j
thought the teachers' role
was changing in the sense
that no longer could
teachers be regarded as the
fount of all knowledge who
“hand out little messages"
to children.
”1 think the world has got
to the stage where children
and teachers work at the
skills children need." she
said.
They might work to¬
gether on information
handling skills and discover
where to go to find out
about things.
The computer often en¬
couraged that partnership.
Training
Teachers needed tu be
told that the values they
have always had still oper¬
ated but they needed to be
shown they were expressed
differently when they used
computers.
On the subject of fourth
generation learning soft¬
ware, such as program au¬
thoring systems. Mrs Nevile
said she did not believe
their use costituted educa-
I
O NE DAY last year
Diana Ryall took
six Apple comput¬
ers out to a subur-
>an school as part of a
Sydney University research
project designed to expose
^oung children to the pro¬
gramming language Logo.
Logo is in fact rather more
;han a programming lan¬
guage: it is an environment in
which children can teach a
computer device called a tur¬
tle to trace out patterns and at
the same time gain a grasp of
geometric and mathematical
principles. Little help is given:
the children discover for
themselves through trial, error
and logic how to make the
computer do what they wanL
It is not a quiet process. The
school principal had
approved the experiment, but
after it had been running for a
short time he rushed into the
classroom to stop it.
"He was terribly concerned
about the noise^ level. He
thought we had lost all control
over the students," says Ryall,
education adviser for Apple
Computer Australia.
"By traditional standards of
a teacher demanding total
attention I suppose we had.
There were five pupils around
each of the six computers and
almost all of them were
talking excitedly, trying to
make their point felt on what
the group should be doing."
What the principal had seen
as noisy chaos was in fact a
voyage of exploration, discov¬
ery and communication.
The electronic classroom, it
seems, has finally arrived in
Australia. So far the students
are having no trouoie coping;
only some of the teachers.
It is not at all the kind of
place many had imagined.
Instead, the computer revolu¬
tion now beginning to shake
Australian schools is a cheer¬
ful, humanist affair of group
dynamics and one in which —
in the better cases at least —
the pupils are in clear, if
sometimes noisy, control of
the computers rather than the
other way round. Imaginative, j
even exciting software, is (
'trickling onto the market.
1 This is all part of a world¬
wide computer revolution, in
which the ideas and philoso- .
phy of US mathematician and j
computerist Seymour Papert |
"are'playing a leading role.
Papert, who helped design
Logo at the Artificial Intelli¬
gence Laboratory at Massa¬
chusetts Institute of Technol¬
ogy, believes that old ideas of
;i computer-aided instruction
i should be turned on their j
head. Children instead ,
instruct the computer and
come into contact with some
of the deepest ideas from
science, maths and communi¬
cation.
His book Mindstorms:
Children, Computers and
Powerful Ideas (Harvester
Press, 1980), which links com¬
puters to the cognitive learn¬
ing theories of the Swiss
educationist Jean Piaget, has
I become one of the seminal
! influences on modern educa-
i tional thinking: its evangelical
zeal has helped spark new
thoughts on how computers
can be used in schools.
In Australian schools, com¬
puters are now being used not
only to do dull old drill and
practice routines — but also to
research local history, to simu¬
late strange micro-worlds, to
experiment in science labora¬
tories that exist only in com¬
puter memory, to compose
music, to explore the effects of
conservation, to correct dys-
lectic problems in some slow
learners, to write concrete
poetry or adventure stories
with multiple endings.
At Alicurung, a mainly
Aboriginal school 380 kilo¬
metres north of Alice Springs,
principal Chris Nott has
reported one measure of suc¬
cess: students who had previ¬
ously resisted some aspects of
white learning have been
breaking into school after
hours to continue work on
educational computer pro¬
grams.
According to Nott, the
school’s bank of Apple com¬
puters has knocked down
several barriers of traditional
outbade education: Aborigi¬
nal society is group achieve¬
ment-oriented, and peer
group pressure inhibits black
children from competing in
the individualistic style of the
white education system. Com¬
puter-aided instruction pro-
I vides private pressure-free
tuition. At the same time the
Aboriginal students are highly
jvisual learners and warm to
computer displays,
i There are now believed to
be between 30,000 and 40,000
computers in Australian
schools, and total spending on
computerisation has been put
at $30 million a year.
But less than half that is
currently landing in the bank
accounts of the major hard¬
ware makers. Under the Fed¬
eral Government's three-year
$ 18-million school computing
plan, most funds are ear¬
marked for teacher training
and course-ware develop-
ment.
The Commonwealth j
Schools Commission, which
drew up the national plan,
estimated a minimum $125
million would be needed to
implement it over five years.
Many educators see the $18
million which they actually
got as a niggardly amount.
New contracts for school
supply of computers will be
_ _ _ a :_ Ctot
The electronic classroom
Developments in computer technology promise to change the face of education
in Australia. In this special feature, DAVID FRITH describes the latest products
available to teachers and students and (opposite) LAUREL ALLEN profiles two
NSW, Victoria and WA — J
later this year. Victoria alone I
has received applications
from more than SO suppliers.
The market remains small by
comparison with either the
business or home computer
fields, but the business is
regarded as valuable, particu¬
larly for the foot it gives in the
door should Canberra agree to
a more wholehearted effort.
Approved computer suppli¬
ers to schools vary from State
to State, though four manu¬
facturers — Apple, BBC,
Commodore and Microbce
are predominant.
A new and highly contro¬
versial entrant to the race has
been Sperry Computer, which
has strong links to the Queens¬
land Government. It recently
announced it would build a
factory to make computers in
Brisbane, after winning a
contract to supply more than
1,400 microcomputers to
Queensland high schools for a |
computer literacy program.
The Sperry, like the better-
known IBM PC, is a 16-bit
machine running the MS-
DOS operating system: while
it's seen as an excellent busi- ,
ness computer, the value of j
16-bit technology to schools is
questionable in many eyes, j
There is very little 16-bit
educational software, and the
machines typically cost two to ;
three times the price of an I
eight-bit system such as Apple
or Microbee. J
How many computers do
Australian schools need? A
keyboard on every desk is the
technocrats' ideal, but with
three-million students that
could cost a cool S3 billion: a
politically unattainable dream
in the era of Budget razor
gangs. Two or three per
classroom might be more
realistic, and even that would
take many years to implement
While the education hard¬
ware market is embroiled in
controversy, the software
industry is steaming gently
ahead. More than 60 software
suppliers compete for a mar¬
ket estimated at S8-S10 million
a year, and likely to grow
rapidly. Some are one-person
shows, often with only a
handful of self-designed prod¬
ucts: others are major com¬
mercial concerns, importing
American and British ware —
much of it old-fashioned pre-
Papert drill material.
A third and increasingly
important group is all-Austra¬
lian, backed by grants or
venture capital and in some
cases Education Department
blessing, and producing high
quality programs with 100 pef
cent Australian content.
Among the biggest of these
are Melbourne-based Prolq* '
gic; and Brisbane's Jacaranda
Wiley. Up-and-comers
include two Wollongong, •
NSW, groups, Spinifex Soft¬
ware and Know Ware — part
of a drive to find a new
high-tech future for this coal
and steel city.
Spinifex, which evolved
from a group of concerned
university experts and local
schoolteachers, has developed
very distinctive maths discov-r
ery and tutorial programs
which allow pupils to experi¬
ment individually with ele¬
mental concepts. They have
excited overseas attention,
and export possibilities are
being investigated.
The fourth part of the
software industry comprises
the special computer educa¬
tion units now formed by most
State governments.
The Tasmanian and South
Australian units have been
operating for some years,
producing low-cost, well-re¬
searched software. More
recently they have been joined
by WA and NSW — the latter
putting a 40-person task force
to work at producing training
courses and software. Another
significant NSW group has
been CARE, a remedial edu¬
cation group at Denistone
East under the enthusiastic
Barry Manefield.
Victoria has taken a slightly
different course, preferring to
back the private enterprise
Prologic venture, in which the
Government’s Economic
Development Corporate
has a minority interest
Two computer profession¬
als, Dov Brener and Tim
James, raised SI million in
venture capital to get the
project afloat: they use
teachers seconded from the
Education Department as part
of the design team.
Despite a general shortage
of funds, there are, according
to Diana Ryall, three or four
areas in which the Australian
software industry has kept up
with, or is even ahead of world
trends. One has been Logo:
Australian written books and
applications abound, and one
Logo device — Turtle Tot, a
programmable robot which
can be programmed by very
young children, made by Flex¬
ible Systems of Hobart, has
become a world seller.
The other areas are creative
writing, simulations and data¬
bases.
• Creative writing, or pro¬
cess writing, is an educational
development of word process¬
ing. Using word processing}
programs specially designed
for school use, children are
able to manipulate the ideas in
developing as an export area.
Active Learning Systems of
Byron Bay, NSW, has been
offered the chance of start-up
rher writing, and to get. ‘»>e State of
perfect error-free print-outs, j Mich.gan to launch three such
^ ^ 1 products on the American
• Simulations are imagined
worlds where students can
take control, and see the effect v
of their decisions. Gold Dust
Island (Jacaranda Wiley) puts
students on an island wnere
they must share ideas
resources to survive; Isle Of
What, produced by the Soil
Conservation Authority, gives
geography students practice in
] land management decisions;
I Dirigible (Wesoft — the WA
. Education Department labeii
puts students in a
1 lighter-than-air craft, travel-
| ling above a contoured map
and having to calculate the
effects of temperature, wind
conditions and other factors
to stay aloft.
market. They are USA Profile,
l
an interactive database of
statistics from the SO US
States; One World, a similar
file on 178 independent
nations; and Hometown, an
open file system that allows
students to create a database
on their own region. i
The Turtle’s Sourcebook. Dor.™ Bear¬
den. Kathleen Murtin. James H. Mailer Young
People's Logo .Association. ”3 pp..
S2I.0S. Restoii Publishing Co.. Il-Rkl Sunset
Hills Rd.. Rcston. VA 22WO.
The Turtle's Sourcebook is a marvelous re¬
source book for teachers. It is helpfn! for both
the le-.11 ning anti teaching of Logo !nci.,£e>f are
commands and instructions for four versions of
Loco (Apple, T1 W4. Tl y'),4A. and Mi T>. It is
full of ideas for both off- and cm-con*ru:cf use
to help children (and teachersI) understand
L.ogo. The majority of the hook is de-vaed to
turtle graphics. Many e samples and Je.-.s Se
given to introduce v.iriacles. curves are .Ircles..
recursion, conditio.-.ds, and tcsseHatSs-’v
Little mention is made of th.e stn-c'ars of
programming and the development of -trerpi-v
cedures with subprocedures to simplity a com¬
plex problem. Extremely valuable are the ap-
any teacher beginning to use Logo in the class-
-A dele Neither’.
• Databases are one area
where Australian educational
designers are leading the
world. The genre took off
when the Tasmanian Educa¬
tion Department's Elizabeth
Media Centre produced The
First Fleet, a file of informa¬
tion on the convicts who
arrived in Sydney in 1788.
Students use the computer tn pendixes at the end of the book, which
analyse and research the da ta, summarize much of the informal ion and include
and draw conclusions: ftey !»ddition.d references (e g.. Logo for preschool-
become true historians. ! a cross-reference guide fu, jive versions
The program has been Color. Cyrer, ML . a,m m
incredibly popular with Aus- j 0 ™ !l ’ ,n s , pU f t Dt ?,. h,gh ^ L h ’ s b °°'
tralian schools and has now j woulJ be a valuab,i at!Ui:ion tu £he fcrar > ° f
been followed by many more: |
Birds of Antarctica, again 1X0,11
from the Elizabeth Centre;
Hounds And History, actual
dog registration records from
100 years ago; Crime and
Society (Prologic), a 23-year
record of otfeaces. xrx
categories in Victoria, letting a
student chart the changing
nature of crime; The Dream
Machine — a record of car
registrations.
“These things show how our
society has changed, and are
very useful in general studies.
But you need a teacher with a
bit of oomph to use them,”
Ryall says.
One of her favourites is
Bushranger Database from
the new Wollongong com¬
pany Know Ware. Not only
does it provide raw data about
Australia's wild colonial boys,
but ballads, worksheets and a
glossary of terms.
The database field is even
