Re: I have a crisis

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:23:36 GMT, efriedNoSpam@xxxxxxxxx (EricF)
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>These kids have it easy. PCs, web, usenet. I remember trying to get my
>homework done in the early 70's. Rode my horse to the computer center,
>keypunched my code, submitted a card deck, and would come back 2 days later
>hoping I didn't I didn't have a typo or be off a column (Fortran). The real
>old timers probably had it worse. ;-)

Paper tape was even more frustrating. You had to copy at about 10 CPS
until the spot you wanted to change came up. If you were inattentive
and overshot, you had to start over.

And before that gold tipped wires and plugboards.

That's as far back as I go.

It seems impossibly irritating today, but at the time I was floating
on air at the chance to play with computers and wear a white coat in
the holy of holies computer room, something no other kid got to do. I
felt like a child astronaut.

The first time I touched a keypunch I was so excited I totally forgot
all my instruction and soon cards were flying out the thing
uncontrollably, like the sorceror's apprentice.meets Lucille Ball.

I had access to the computer science library as student and later as a
contract programmer for professors.. I felt as if I had gone to
heaven. I read everything I could get my hands on even esoteric
things like committee minutes of the deliberations to invent Ada.. It
seems so odd students today seem to think of learning to write
programs as a chore.

Being a student with all the time you want to learn is SUCH a luxury.
There has to be some way of helping students see their situation
through their older eyes so they don't waste it.


--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.
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