Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Buzz old skool
Buzz old skool
by JimMoreno - 3/14/07 1:05 PMWhat a far out trip in the waaay back machine! Brought back so many memories, a couple I had forgot about completely. This should be a monthly segment!
ROFL
by Hiedran - 3/14/07 1:32 PM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoI wonder how many times they had to stop and take a break so they could just laugh at themselves.
I'm just glad I had my prototype 24k modem...
Thanks for the Apple //c update
by stagebrown - 3/14/07 2:56 PM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoI really enjoyed this month's audio file - it was well worth waiting while it downloaded overnight. This fall (Aug. '84) I will be starting my first teaching job, and the school is setting up it's first ever computer lab. (The last few years there was an after-school Computer Club that had three or four TRS-80s, but this will be the first time there has been a computer class.) I hear the school is looking at buying 20+ Apple //c computers, so your update on that machine was very helpful.
I think I'll be concentrating on teaching programming in BASIC. That's the main focus of computers in schools these days - getting the kids to the point where they can write their own code. I don't think we'll get too advanced, but I hope it will be a good basis for anyone who goes on to study computers as a vocation.
We'll only have the software that comes with the machines, but I hope I can get some money in the budget in the future to buy some more (glad the prices are coming down). Has anyone heard about this AppleWorks program that's supposed to be so great?
I can't say I think much about the whole windows idea - why would I want students to be able to do two things at once? It's hard enough to get them to concentrate on one thing at a time.
And mice? Can you just see what the students would try to do with those? They wouldn't last a month ... no, thanks.
- Joel
Update: 2007
by stagebrown - 3/14/07 3:11 PM In reply to: Thanks for the Apple //c update by stagebrownJust found my old post from 20+ years ago (amazing how things hang around on the Web). Here's what's happened since:
I did start my teaching career in that new computer lab, and I'm still teaching in the same district. Your 1984 podcast brought back a lot of memories on how the technology in classrooms has changed. I taught BASIC programming on the //c's for about 5 years, although a year or two into it we got AppleWorks, and were amazed by the word processor. It only took about three months for me to learn all the codes you had to type to format text as bold, underline, etc. (no WYSIWYG there).
Then we got a lab with the pizza-box Macs (someone help me remember what that model was called). I did all the service myself, and got pretty good at tightening loose RCA video cables and cleaning floppy disk drives - even learned to set the speed on the drives.
A few years later I was thrilled to get a Mac with not only a color screen, but a mouse and a CD drive (the only one in the whole district). I didn't have that at home, of course, so when I bought Myst, I stayed after school most days for several weeks playing the game in my classroom. Then I got a phone line run into my classroom and a modem, and was the only classroom in the ditrict that was on the Internet. Ooh, aah.
This year, several labs later, I've moved into my first Windows classroom, with XP on the machines, and found that an old Mac fan really can survive in a Windows world. (But I still come home to my Mac Mini.)
We stopped teaching programming long ago, but this year I'm teaching digital photography, video editing and web design, and hope to start podcasting next year. And I still teach word processing, but without the in-line codes (thank goodness for mice and GUI).
Thanks for the surge of memories (and for doing it straight instead of going for the camp). It was a great reminder of how far we've all come.
- Joel
that's a great story Joel!...
by shawnlin - 3/14/07 7:21 PM In reply to: Update: 2007 by stagebrownand thank you for being a teacher! It takes a lot of different people to make the world go 'round and I'm glad folks like yourself are inspiring and empowering!
That reminds me...I ought to send my favorite teachers a post card so they know how I turned out 
(NT) yeah - GREAT idea and well done "staying in character" :)
by shawnlin - 3/14/07 7:16 PM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenowhen do we get the 1907 podcast
by vidyman - 3/15/07 7:49 AM In reply to: (NT) yeah - GREAT idea and well done "staying in character" :) by shawnlinThey could talk about the format war between disks vs. cylinders, that new invention by Marconi, wireless telegraphs, the new morose coda, and that big new ship the white star line is building. I can just hear Molly now “A ship that big won’t float, and if does it probably won’t be able to steer clear of iceburgs”
I should be a regular bit.
by isting - 3/15/07 7:19 AM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoI'm sure Tom had to write the whole thing. Wasn't Veronica a toddler in 1984?
Yep...
by Hiedran - 3/15/07 7:23 AM In reply to: I should be a regular bit. by istingIf that. She might not have been even walking at that point in time. Regardless, incredible enunciation skilz for that age. 
Oh No...
by acedtect
- 3/15/07 12:09 PM
In reply to: I should be a regular bit. by isting
V held her own, with the help of an old Poplar Computing magazine.
Tom
Like Totally Awesome, Man
by TheBluePointe - 3/15/07 10:12 AM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoThat was great. 34 myself, it brought back a lot of great memories. I only wished--being an audio wav file--it would have included the "sounds" of the 80's. The sound of a modem squeal (which I haven' heard in years), the beep of an Apple II beeping on, or the truly floppy sound of a real floppy disk. Kind of an a-la Crave podcast. Maybe V and Tom can do a Crave back to the 80's podcast in the future. Ooooo, the Future.
Buzz old skool
by wizkids32 - 3/15/07 2:14 PM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoThat was kool to hear right I had forgotten about a lot of that stuff I had a TRS-80 model 1 and 4 yep that was fun to hear. YEP that should something they might want to think about doing again that was fun.
(NT) Did you know they have the Internet on Computers now?
by davviau - 3/15/07 10:01 PM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoWord....
by thriftyT - 3/17/07 8:23 PM In reply to: Buzz old skool by JimMorenoThis should definitely be a regular feature... Loved it!
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