[Coco] KIDS REACT TO OLD COMPUTERS

[Salvador Garcia]

I remember standing in awe of the computer center's lab assistants of the university that I attended when they rebooted the mini computer by flipping a complicated sequence of switches.

Technology has changed. By the standards of those lab assistants MS-DOS was a dumbed down version of what they did!

The original comment that started this sub-thread caught my attention, especially two phrases (paraphrasing):

"products being dumbed down:"

And as far as dumbing down products I think that everyone has done this, but as others have said, I see it as a way to make the computer experience more productive and to lower the learning curve. On the flip side, people seemed to get lazier and want more stuff handed to them on a silver platter. This is evident if we look at the educational system in the US where a growing trend is to home school the kids because some parents are not satisfied with the level of education provided. Some of the kids that go through the system may come out with a mentality that they can get by doing less work. Companies that manufacture products (not just computers) cater to this mentality by making their products simpler. Unfortunately this also limits their functionality.

Here is a perfect example using Windows: In a given folder having say 200 files of various types, how do you select only the .txt to copy them elsewhere?
Windows is easier to use, but is some cases it hinders what we want to do. Of course we've gotten so used to what Windows (and other GUI OSes) can do well that we end up limiting our activiites to what they can do. Again, for example, how many of you, in the past, have done the above that I asked?

As far as the 80s Apples being difficult to use... well... which computer of that epoch was easier to use than an Apple II? I got a chance to use Apples, Ataris, Radio Shack (and I once saw some one use a Commodore). They were basically the same: Turn ON computer, get greeted by a command line, type in command or program. At least in my personal experience I felt that this class of computers was easy enough to se if I invested the time to learnit. This is a quality that seems to be missing now where people just want to use, not make an investment in learning. Don't get me wrong, having a low learning curve means that we as users can be more productive sooner, but there needs to be a balance in there somewhere<g>

"the ones that were more motivated and figured it out moved on to Windows Linux"

That seemed to have to meanings. Exactly how motivated does one have to be to move into a specific field? Could this also means that Windows/Linux is harder to use? Exactly how much easier is it to use an Apple? In the end I believe that it depends on the application of the product. If I am just going to jot down notes then a simple text editor will do and the three major desktop OSes have a simple app to do this, but if I want to edit video or created animated video then the application can get complex very quickly. It no longer is an OS factor. If we want simple perhaps we should stick with solitaire<g>

My apologies for such a long post. I had all day to ponder the post. As far as using pcs, it does not matter if it is one or another, they all require a specific skill to get the most out of them. There is no room for people who do not want to invest. Regards, Salvador


 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Ladd <dladd at realmspire.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Thu, May 29, 2014 3:06 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] KIDS REACT TO OLD COMPUTERS


Yes this does show how technology has grown.
This reminds me of my one friend that I have tried to show him just simple
stuff, to me anyway, with Windows CMD or old DOS and just blows his mind.

Personally for the I.T. I think people need a interest in it to really
motivate themselves these days to try to get under the hook so to speak.
I myself have always liked ripping stuff apart to see how it works and what
parts are in it.  Where other people just look at it and don't care how it
works as long as they can just plug it in and use it.

Just think of where tech will be in yet another 30 years and what kids will
be saying about what we have right now.  These classic computers we love
would just really blow out kids minds in another 30 years and even the
adults :P

--
David Ladd


On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 10:50 PM, Melanie and John Mark Mobley <
johnmarkmelanie at gmail.com> wrote:

> KIDS REACT TO OLD COMPUTERS
> Link:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7EpEnglgk&list=PLFCAA1C9F5755B266&index=2
>
> John Mark Mobley
>
>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>

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