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Text File | 2006-10-19 | 12KB | 358 lines

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 .CE 2
 *IMPACT/99*
 by Jack Sughrue

 ^^^GOOD OLD DAYS

 ^^^^PART I: DARK AGES
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     "Long, long ago in a world far
 away...."

     In the computer world, the "Good
 Old Days" are measured in minutes,
 not in decades (as with real life).
 So in a real-life decade, the
 computer world has lived eons.

     Public broadcasting ran an
 hour-long program called "Computer
 Graphics" a few months ago.  It
 assaulted the senses; it was so
 mind-boggling.  These incredible
 graphics were used for media,
 manufacturing, medicine, mere fun,
 and MIT (the Massachusetts Institute
 of Technology), where some of the
 most advanced computer activities in
 the world are going on, including a
 64x64x64-foot total computer
 environment which is simply called
 The Cube.  But the research on
 Artificial Intelligence performed by
 some of these most creative
 scientific geniuses on Earth is where
 the limits of imagination cease to
 exist.  There are other technical
 institutes in America and worldwide
 (particularly in Japan) that are
 investing large amounts of time and
 money in AI development.  The world
 is already a completely different one
 for us than it is for these unusual
 folk.  Reading about the fascinating
 AI future is the most flabergasting
 reading I've ever done.  (And it gave
 me an oppurtunity to finally use
 "flabergasting" in a sentence.)

 There is nothing in our lives today
 that doesn't have a computer
 relationship.  There will be nothing
 in our future that will not contact
 computers in some way.  All "things"
 such as books, beds, bowling balls,
 and bananas have to be shipped and
 stored and sold and bought.
 Computers.  Optimum growing and
 harvesting time (bananas and the wood
 for beds and books) are computerized.
 Computers help design books and
 bowling balls and beds and help in
 the manufacturing.

     A walk in the country?  Well,
 unless you live next to the place of
 the walk (in a house with VCRs, TVs,
 microwaves), you have to drive in a
 car (with computerized engineering)
 to even get to it.  Then you'll
 probably wear clothes and shoes.

     I really tried to think of
 something in my life that is not
 affected by computers.  I have a
 library of old P.G.^Wodehouse books
 written, I'm certain, on mechanical
 typewriters and set by typesetting
 machines and printed on mechanical
 presses and bound by mechanical
 equipment - all from the 50s and
 60s.
     Now, if I read any of these books
 at night at home, I realize some
 computer is sending me electric
 energy and keeping tabs of how much I
 use.
     But, if I squeeze into an old
 pair of dungarees from my middle-age
 (pre-computer manufacture) and,
 barefoot and barechested, go lie on
 our lawn in the sun to read as humans
 were intended to, I have the nagging
 sensation that I'm not fully out of
 the computer world yet.  I try to
 ignore the cars driving by, the
 planes flying overhead, the sounds of
 some silly teenyboppers bopping down
 the street blaring their silly noises
 through a boom box.
     And, eventually, Wodehouse
 captures me, and I am computer-free
 for a few hours.

     Maybe.

     If the phone doesn't ring; if the
 neighbor doesn't start up the
 thundering smoke machine he calls a
 lawn mower; if nobody offers me a
 cool, refreshing beer (grown,
 harvested, processed, canned,
 delivered, advertised, and sold by
 our friend, the computer).
     Maybe then.

     But all this sounds like I don't
 love my computers.  I do.  I DO!  If
 they are taking over the world, as
 I'm certain they are after reading
 some of the latest AI books, then I
 want them to know I am
 ontheirside!

     All this thinking about how
 quickly and completely computers
 invaded our lives began at the last
 meeting of our M.U.N.C.H. User Group.
 One of our new members (Yes, we are
 getting new members!) asked what life
 was like in the old days of the club.
 Well, the 4/A hasn't existed for a
 "real life" decade yet, so I didn't
 have any trouble recalling.

     Before the 4/A existed, TI
 generously loaned me a chicklet-key
 99-4 to use for a year in my
 5th-grade classroom.  We probably had
 the first computer in an elementary
 classroom in America.  It was great!
 The kids and I learned to have the
 computer do calculations.  (The 4 had
 a calculator built in as one of the
 original screen options.)  We learned
 how to make the computer fill up the
 screen with our names.  We learned to
 delay with FOR/NEXT.  Things like
 that.  There was no software at all
 and only a xeroxed attempt at a
 manual.
     But it was fun.  And very
 difficult!  (I hear the chuckles out
 there.  Think for a minute.  NOBODY
 had a computer.  No library.  No
 small business.  No stores.  No
 schools.  No homes.  Making your name
 come up on the screen was no easy
 task at first.  Still, it was better
 than watching the test pattern on TV
 for hours when TVs first came out,
 but that is another story.) I think
 it was a 4K prototype.  Black and
 white TV.  I can't recall sound.

     When I finally bought my first
 TI, I was floored by the features and
 by the wonderful keyboard.  As a
 touch-typist I found it much more
 convenient than the chicklets or the
 membranes on those early computers
 (though it still took me an awfully
 long time to master the peculiarities
 of it).
        The features! For one, it had
 great things built into it that I
 didn't recall or learn from the 4:
 NUM, RES, all those sub calls (SOUND,
 COLOR, etc.) thatstillmake the 4/A
 one of the easiest programming
 computers ever to be made (though its
 unique BASIC caused many translation
 problems).  It's biggest feature for
 me (as I still had a black and white
 TV and hadn't yet received my
 synthesizer free for buying six
 cartridges) was the ability to save
 the programs.  A tape recorder.  We
 lost everything on the 4 when we shut
 it off, but now everything could be
 saved.  The manual even had programs
 we could type in free.
     The manual, "Beginner's BASIC,
 was, to me, one of the most lucid,
 exciting tutorials I have ever seen.
 I can still recall the sense of
 accomplishment and wonder and awe I
 felt when I was able to create the
 stick figure and make it move.  It
 was called "Mr.^Bojangles," crude
 block graphics that alternated to
 create the illusion of movement.  To
 me it was a crowning achievement of
 some kind.
     I called my family in to see what
 I had done.  The four kids looked and
 smiled and left. They were used to
 being called in to "look what your
 father did on the computer!"  My wife
 appeared incredulous.
     "Don't you like it?" I asked.
     "You paid over $500 and have been
 up here every night for three months
 for THIS?"
     She missed the point, I think.
 She was never one to understand
 compulsive/obsessive behavior.  It
 doesn't run inherfamily.
     Ah, well.

     And I saved the program.  I still
 have it.  I just got up and pulled it
 out of the box of tapes in the corner
 of my computer room.  It's called
 "Dancing Man," but I don't think I'll
 load it and run it.  I'd rather
 remember things my own way.

     I wonder if most of the young
 techie-whiz types who started off at
 the same time I did with the TI ever
 went through those infant and
 pre-school stages or if they just
 leaped into techiehood.
     One of those types - a young man
 by the name of Bernie Miller - and I
 were in M.U.N.C.H. way back when.  We
 both had our B&&W TVs and tape
 recorders and we both had typed in
 the manual.  He had been a charter
 subscriber to the old "99er"
 magazine, and I had bought an early
 book of programs by C.W.Engel, called
 "Stimulating Simulations for the
 TI-99/4A." Just seeing my computer's
 name on the cover of a book gave me a
 thrill the way we VW Beetle owners
 used to feel when a fellow Beetle
 driver would pass and toot in the
 early days of very few Beetles.  A
 fellowship was being formed.

     This was long before the big
 1983-4 publishing boom for TI, when
 about 90% of all the 100-plus TI
 books were published.  This is before
 Extended BASIC.

     Bernie said he would type in some
 of the programs from "99er" and we
 could both try them out.  I said I'd
 do the same for the Engel book.  It
 was a great learning experience for
 both of us, as the listings were not
 always very accurate.  (Engel had
 done translations, so many BASIC
 terms were inaccurate.)  Typing,
 trying to figure out what the weird
 stuff meant, looking up examples in
 the manual and reference book that
 came with the console, discussing the
 problems, and SOLVING the problems to
 create a finished, working program,
 was a fine thing to do.  (Bernie did
 most of the solving, but I did a lot
 of the learning which he seemed to
 absorb from the air without effort.)
     I don't think this is a process
 most home-computer owners go through
 anymore.  Too bad.  It was a
 wonderful way to discover the depths
 of the computer and of oneself.

     One day, almost a year after
 Bernie and I started working as a
 team during our M.U.N.C.H. meetings
 and at each other's houses a couple
 times, Bernie announced that we had
 "over 100 programs!" Granted, a lot
 of them were simple screen graphics
 or variations of The Dancing Man,
 Guess The Computer's Number, and How
 To Amortize A Loan, but we did it! We
 had over 100 files and were
 thrilled.
     And we had begun to put our own
 stamp on those programs.  The flashes
 and whistles, as we learned how to
 use the techniques of animation and
 music and color (though I hadn't yet
 gotten a color TV).

     I brought the computer back and
 forth to school and started to write
 flashcard programs for my class.
 With lots of glitter.  My kids at
 home and at school began to take to
 it.
      My two sons helped me debug
 programs.  They began to see things I
 missed.  I saw things as an
 Enlish-major proofreader.  They saw
 things as computer programmers would
 see them: symbols or patterns that
 didn't make sense; even electronic
 punctuation, which was so different
 from English.

     Then I realized (this is in
 1982/3 - and I had bought a second
 computer "for the kids" at home and a
 third for my classroom -) that I was
 of a different age, maybe an entirely
 different species.  These youngsters
 had no awe of the computer.  It did
 not fill them with wonder.  And,
 though they would all do so much more
 with the computer than I could dream
 of doing, they wouldn't have as much
 fun doing it.  To them, Neil
 Armstrong's stepping on the moon
 while I watched it live in my bedroom
 on another world in the wee hours,
 was no big deal.  Neither is a
 computer.

     To them.

     It still fillsmewith awe and
 wonder.

     (This is the first of three
 personal recollections about the
 4/A's "Good Old Days" as seen through
 the eyes of a honest-to-goodness
 non-techie.)
     [Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas
 MA 01516]


     If any newsletter editor prints
 these IMPACT/99 articles, please put
 me on your mailing list.  Thanks - JS

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