[Coco] The early days of Hacking and Coding a CoCo Was: Here's a CoCo 1 ...

[Bill Loguidice]

Agreed. Even though we'd love 100% computer literacy as it were, we need to
face the reality that not everyone has the interest or inclination in doing
things that require an actual computer. That would be like asking me to fix
my car. I have no interest, so I let someone else do it. For the vast
majority of the population, they're fine with browsing the Web and doing
light productivity tasks, including writing the occasional document,
crunching the occasional number, simple editing of photos and videos,
simple programming, etc. For that, there's nothing wrong with a tablet.
There's far less that can go wrong and far less that needs to be
maintained. In fact, I'd argue that the approachability of smartphones and
tablets is the best thing for computer literacy, in that it can create a
comfort level with high technology that can lead to investigating more
sophisticated activities that do require "real" computers. Even if it's not
a gateway drug to powerful computers, it IS the dream many of us had who
got to use personal computers in the 70s and 80s, and that's getting more
people on board with something that we love. That's not a bad thing, and
eventually, as was stated, there's no reason to think that these constantly
evolving smartphones and tablets can't take the place of "real" computers
for everyone, including us. It's certainly on that trajectory. We really
don't have to be curmudgeonly about this.

-Bill

===================================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
===================================================
Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
===================================================


On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 9:31 PM, Allen Huffman <alsplace at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Jan 20, 2014, at 6:56 PM, Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It scares me when I hear variations on the popular themes "90/95/99% of
> > people only need a tablet" and "most people are just information
> > consumers".  Have we given up on 90/95/99% of the population?
>
> Yes. Once computers went mainstream. THink of how many people know nothing
> about the computers they have owned other than how to plug them up and turn
> them on. They can do e-mail, Facebook, maybe some games. They've never
> programmed it. THey've never upgraded it. They really don't even need a
> computer. They just need e-mail, Facebook, maybe some games.
>
> Think about that. We stood at the beginning of "buy off the shelf and plug
> it up at home" computing, and then a blink of an eye later, "everyone" has
> a computer. Everyone has broadband. Most folks have PDAs with portable
> internet.
>
> It's stunning.
>
> And then there's us old guys... Sitting in front of me is a quadcore Mac
> mini (paid for by one of my employers), and a 2009 Macbook (it's still
> doing great for everything but rendering so I never updated - used to
> upgrade every 2 years). Then, I have *14* hard drives on my desk. Wait...
> 15. I have... Crap. 16.
>
> And all of this storage and power is used so rarely, but when I use it
> (production time for me is August-October), they are on 24/7, sometimes
> spending all day to export a full HD project.
>
> I would say I am in the 1%... But the rest of my time, I probably spend it
> with the other 99%.
>
> (And in the closet? I still have my CoCo 1, my CoCo 2, a CoCo 3 and a
> backup... Plus tubs of old 80s hardware... Sadly, I use all that even less.)
>
> You know we are living Star Trek when the biggest, toughest bully jock in
> school... is carrying around a computer in his pocket.
>
> -
> Allen Huffman - PO Box 22031 - Clive IA 50325 - 515-999-0227 (vmail/TXT
> only)
> Sub-Etha Software - http://www.subethasoftware.com - Established 1990!
> Sent from my MacBook.
>
>
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