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children will have the first-hand opportunity to view other countries, I truly feel TV can fill a gap. In many cases the photographer can take the viewer to places no tourist can go. The show "Four Castles" is a good case in point. On a real trip to Wales, few of us would ever view these castles in such detail . . . Com ing soon is a 3-part series on the geology of the American West, a special on trains, a National Geo graphic update on Hillary and Ever est, Tanzanian wildlife, and the whooping crane. ... 1 liken TV to a guest in my house . If I had company and the per son spoke vulgarities, threw garbage around, and undermined my children's morals, I certainly would never invite them back. If, though, the com pany showed us spectacular photos of a recent trip and then helped explain the history of that country, they'd be invited back many times ...
COMPUTER NEWS In GWS #35 I wrote about Cole co's coming small computer, the "Adam." It was first announced for summer, then promised for October, then for Christmas. As of Nov. 15, it is still not in the local stores, though very much in the ads. Dealers, afraid of losing their Christmas busi ness, are saying that Adam will appear any day, that supplies will be limited at first, and that sales will be made on a first-come first-served basis . In other words, if you hope to give someone an Adam for Christmas you must pay for it now; if it doesn't arrive in time for Christmas that is your tough luck, and (your money now safely in the store's bank) you'll just have to wait patiently until it does. By now IBM has shown its small computer, called "PCjr" (Personal Com puter junior). About it Peter Mitch ell, electronics engineer and chief computer expert of the Boston Phoe nix, writes: . . . Now that it has been un veiled, the machine itself comes as an anticlimax. If it were not graced by those three magic ini tials [IBM], its prospects for suc cess would be rather dim. Objective ly, it is an overpriced, disappoint ing assemblage of rather ordinary hardware . .. In both word processing and vid eo games, the two most popular uses for home computers, the IBM is notably weak .. . The $670 that buys only the IBM keyboard would get you a complete Atari Writer system or the entire Coleco Adam system .. . E . F . Schumacher, author of SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL (see our list), would get some ironic amusement from this . Only a company as big as IBM would dare offer a product this bad, and with every reason to believe that it will be a commercial success. The Phoenix also predicts that in 1984 we will see a number of truly portable computers, that is, capable of battery operation and weighing ten pounds or less (as opposed to the 25 lb . "transportables"), with a full Liquid Crystal Display screen, sub stantial memory, word processing capa bility, etc. If the price is low enough, such a machine might be use ful to us in this office. Meanwhile the Osborne Corpora tion, who made the first of the trans portable computers, and in spite of
having last year over $100 million in sales, has just gone bankrupt. Accountants who had been called in to review the company's books gave Adam Osborne, the founder and president, the unwelcome news that during a time when he had thought the company was earning money it had in fact lost $8 million, and barring a miracle would soon have to close. This confirms vividly what I said in an earlier GWS about informa tion not being a substitute for intel ligence and judgement. Certainly, if access to computer experts and compu ter information could save a busi ness, it should have saved this one . But information based on mistaken views of reality is worse than none, and as Osborne found out, the more of it you have, the worse off you are. The press accounts of the end of this company said that when Osborne first learned of his unexpected loss es and hence the imminent probable failure of his company, before he told anyone else this news, he sold $1.5 million of his personal stock to another one of the company's direc tors. Later, when the company decided to close, it told a large number of its employees that it was sending them on indefinite furlough (since if it fired them outright it would have to give them the severance pay to which they were entitled) and gave them two hours to clear their things out of the office. I wondered, "Why two hours? What was the big rush?" These two reports may throw some use ful light on the notion that the peo ple who make computers are primarily moved by some deep concern for the well-being of the human race. Texas Instruments, one of the giants of the field, has decided after huge losses to drop out of the home computer market altogether. Apple's profits were down 78% from the previous year, and it may soon be in worse trouble. It made a huge en gineering and capital investment in a fairly expensive home computer called the Lisa, in which you give the mach ine instructions by using a little table-top gadget called a "mouse" to move a cursor on the screen, thus mak ing it unnecessary to memorize or carry out complicated instructions. An ingenious idea, which Apple hoped would keep them at the head of the pack for some time . But it has al ready been technologically outdated by a new machine from Hewlett-Packard in which you give the machine the same kind of instructions just by touching the screen with your finger. What this will do to the huge sales Apple anticipated for Lisa remains to be seen. So the dance goes on. The Phoe nix reports that for a given capabili ~ the price of a new computer is halved every two years. Also, second hand machines generally sell for about half their original price . The Commodore VIC can now be had, new, for $50, and a second-hand VIC is con sidered to be without commercial val ue; if you have one and don't want it, give it away, it's not worth the trouble it would take you to sell it. As always, the moral is, unless you have a real business need for a compu ter, don't be in a hurry to buy, and if you buy, buy cheap . - JH
COMPUTERS: FOR ... From Mario Pagnoni (MA): . .. A year ago we decided to test the home-schooling waters. Here in
Massachusetts the legal waterway had already been bridged and my 13 years of teaching also worked in our favor. We expected, and got, no trouble from school authorities . ... We were fascinated by the potential of the home computer and intrigued with the prospects of utili zing it as an educational tool. And for me, home-schooling was an oppor tunity to combine three loves: my children, education, and writing (I'd attempt a book on home education pOSSibly with a slant toward compu ters) . At the outset we knew nothing about computers. And personally, I am a basket case around machines. I can't even figure out how to run the digital watch my kids gave me last Father's Day. Our 10-year-old son James is the only one who can program it . When I try to set it, the bloody thing ends up playing Yankee Doodle during meetings. "I, ah, don't know how to work it," I try to explain. "You see my, ah, son ... " Nevertheless, we researched per sonal computers as best we could and finally opted for Apple. There was more software for the Apple than any other computer. We found programs for word-processing, data-base manage ment, and an incredible array of games and educational packages. Most importantly, there were two Apple users' clubs within a 30-minute drive of our home. While support is some times rare from computer dealers, it is readily available at a friendly users' club. Before I knew it I was not only a club member, but co-editor of its newsletter, and author of a regular column called "Computers for Absolute Beginners . " The column was my way of insuring that there would be at least one piece in the publica tion that I could understand . But was all this computer stuff the antithesis of home schooling? Were we to turn our children over to the computer? I mean, home schooling is people oriented. It can be tremen dously rewarding and bring a family closer together. Everything we heard about computers indicated that they would come between people. But the more we worked with the machine the more we realized that it neither brought us together nor tore us apart. It was just a tool - a power ful tool. It was part of our educa tional program, but it could never be the educational program ... Our biggest computer problem was software. There was so much available and so little that was good. By shar ing ideas at the computer club we learned how to sift through the trash and select worthwhile programs . Much of the available software only pro vides drill and practice. At first I thought, "Who needs a $2000 micro computer to teach multiplication tables - flash cards do the job nice ly for 79 cents." But drill is only one use for a micro . And that mechan ized drill instructor frees teacher time for more creative endeavors. All those years of teaching made me pro gressive enough to know that drill is not the ultimate in education . But, on the other hand, I'm still conser vative enough to know that there's a place for it. The better drill pro grams feature sound effects and graph ics and can be entertaining enough to take the drudgery out of practice. Kids also appreciate the fact that feedback is immediate - no need to wait for teacher to correct and re turn papers. Being non-judgemental is another plus for the micro - you can't disappoint the computer.
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #36