Kids react to Apple II

[Bixler]

It's funny how we say that nowadays as tho it's a bad thing..

(I realize you were proud of it; I mean in general)

 

People seem to think that having to read documentation means that the software wasn't complete / good enough.

 

While there's some truth to that, a well written manual can be incredibly additive to a learning/fun experience.

I think too many poorly written manuals killed that tho...

 

desiv

My father purchases every Missing Manual for OS X, and most recently for the iPhone 5 once he and my mom both got one. I have browsed through them, and I think they're a really great resource.

 

This isn't on the topic of computer manuals specifically, but I remember when I spent hours reading the Neverwinter Nights manual. I remember opening A Link Between Worlds for my 3DS and... the manual is digital. Here's a picture of the NWN manual for reference, maybe it'll help explain why I thought it was so cool: http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/3/39419/2239171-$%28KGrHqNHJBME7%296Mq7pNBPHOZNmIi!~~60_57.JPG

[7800]

These kids now a days would be lost without the internet.

[John_L]

The Entire "React" series is killer, I love the kids react videos. There's one for a rotary phone, and a walkman as well, also the elders react videos are basically the opposite and cool and funny. Look at the hits those guys are generating, they have tons of videos all with millions of hits... they must be clockin' the cash from that.

[atarian63]

I just remember our school had some apples, what a joke,my atari 800 was so much better.

[jmetal88]

These kids now a days would be lost without the internet.

 

I saw a YouTube video recently where a kid (young teens maybe?) decided to try out MS-DOS 6.22. He actually went to the trouble to get a paper manual for it to try and re-create a first-timer's experience authentically. He learned how to create, delete, and change directories from the manual, as well as how to run EDIT, but he gave up on the manual when he was looking for the TYPE command and couldn't remember its name, and went straight to Google to figure it out. I'm pretty sure most kids wouldn't even get that far, so yeah, kids these days really would be lost without the Internet.

[karokoenig]

These kids now a days would be lost without the internet.

 

So would we. What's your point?

[bkrownd]

I just remember our school had some apples, what a joke,my atari 800 was so much better.

 

I've never used an atari 8-bit. Apple ][s with Lode Runner, Choplifter and Ultima were the shiznitz and the standard computer my entire school years. (though my first programming experience in 3rd grade was punch cards and a dialup tele-terminal to some mainframe in Chicago...Oregon Trail on a teleterminal was noisy stuff) None of us ever saw anything as fancy as an Apple ][ at home.

 

Watching the video I was kind of surprised how I forgot some of that stuff after having once used the Apple ][ for about 9 years.

Edited July 22, 2014 by bkrownd

[7800]

 

So would we. What's your point?

Sorry, but I would get along just fine without the internet or a smart phone in my face all day long. Point is, kids born after 2000 are pretty much screwed if there was no internet. Old timers like me can always revert.

[Keatah]

Pre-internet thinking is godlike in a post-internet world.

[Omega-TI]

Here is a scary scenario for you...

 

It's 2025, all the kids and young adults have never known a world without the Internet. Most people no longer have 'REAL BOOKS' containing real knowledge, everything is electronic or 'on the cloud'. In one millisecond an EMP goes off in the upper atmosphere, electronics are destroyed, the Internet and electric infrastructure is simply 'OFF'. Knowledge is out of reach, possibly even lost, bank cards are useless, they cannot talk, text or even think for themselves... How do you think they would adjust?

[Nebulon]

Here is a scary scenario for you...

 

It's 2025, all the kids and young adults have never known a world without the Internet. Most people no longer have 'REAL BOOKS' containing real knowledge, everything is electronic or 'on the cloud'. In one millisecond an EMP goes off in the upper atmosphere, electronics are destroyed, the Internet and electric infrastructure is simply 'OFF'. Knowledge is out of reach, possibly even lost, bank cards are useless, they cannot talk, text or even think for themselves... How do you think they would adjust?

There's a ton of highly-specialized knowledge packed into the brains of the elderly right now that isn't recorded anywhere. Soon it will be gone.

 

To those who still have grandparents -- when you have a chance to talk to them, be sure to listen. You may just pick up skill and technique-based information that could prove very useful in the future. Better yet, document it before it's gone and be sure to use your brain's memory and not just a computer to record it.

[Keatah]

Every kid is so high up the information food chain they would be punched back 10 years in development if their electronics were turned off. It's be like kim kardashian making alge salad from the ocean, by hand. Or hunting rabbits behind the dumpster.

 

All this digitized knowledge is creating a dangerous precipice. But people being the idiots they are wouldn't know the difference anyway.

[John_L]

You can see it already today. Walk into a fast food restaurant when the power goes out. They can't take an order because the computer that takes the order doesn't work because there's no electricity. There's no way to open the cash drawer to transact manually, The credit/debit card machine is down, so forget paying that way, and it doesn't matter, because the machine that couldn't take your order can't send that information to the back of the kitchen so that the make line personnel can make the order, and the server that communicates all this activity can't talk to the server back at HQ.

 

I managed a pizza shop for many years, and if our computers went down, we pulled out the old manual system for taking orders and wrote them by hand, and at the end of the day, I would do the paperwork manually with a battery powered calculator, although technically, I could get by without even that.

 

I believe reading and writing are still significant skills that we should all have, and it's sad to see how completely clueless and useless people become when one cog in the wheel jams up.

 

You'll never find me in that position.

[MarkO]

Here is a scary scenario for you...

 

It's 2025, all the kids and young adults have never known a world without the Internet. Most people no longer have 'REAL BOOKS' containing real knowledge, everything is electronic or 'on the cloud'. In one millisecond an EMP goes off in the upper atmosphere, electronics are destroyed, the Internet and electric infrastructure is simply 'OFF'. Knowledge is out of reach, possibly even lost, bank cards are useless, they cannot talk, text or even think for themselves... How do you think they would adjust?

 

How about the lessons imparted by Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451??? All information stored Digitally, could be manipulated.. If no Paper copies are around for comparison..

 

MarkO

[Algus]

Its actually hilarious. At my store, if my registers go down (update, malfunction, etc) we can't ring sales. Sure I could run it by hand but the company doesn't trust me to do it without the computer watching. Oh well.

[Osgeld]

I keep my 94 pentium 90 laptop at work, cause darnit, usually hook it up to aglient power supplies and or multimeters (why not the 34401 for instance hasnt changed since the late 80's aside from HP logo to Agilent) as a lark I will give it to an intern, all its got is dos and qbasic

[jaybird3rd]

Pre-internet thinking is godlike in a post-internet world.

Not to go off topic, but when I finally build my library—which will be stocked full of printed books—I might just have to put that quote on a placque and hang it on a wall.

[Csonicgo]

I really cringed watching this video, but I'm not going to take this from a cloud-yelling perspective. I think that it's showing an underlying problem with anything old, even if presented as new to them, to a child these days -- is seen with scorn rather than admiration and wonder.

 

It seems to be a side effect of technology and the "User Experience" - Computers didn't start off as appliances, but now they're seen to be as disposable as a washing machine (and in some cases, used as long as one, facilitating any repairman's job), so if the refrigerator doesn't have an ice maker, or the computer doesn't have a GUI with easy-to-use interface, then it's rarely used, and seen as "worthless", as one of the older kids said in that video.

 

I was afraid this stuff would happen to the new generation, since mainstream technology has been nothing but handholding. Not saying that's bad, but you can't help but draw parallels to other things that aren't even based on technology. If it requires a modicum of effort, it's not worth it to that person, so it has no value, even though we see it as valuable because we took the effort to learn how to use it and learn why it's important.

 

http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ This blog article has a funny take on this:

I’ve messed up, as I’m sure many of you have. When we purchased an XBox it was Techno-Dad to the rescue. I happily played about with the mess of cables and then created profiles for everyone. When my son’s MacBook was infected with the FlashBack virus Techno-Dad to the rescue. I looked up some on-line guides and then hammered away in the terminal until I had eradicated that bad-boy. When we purchased a ‘Family Raspberry Pi’ Techno-Dad to the rescue. I hooked it all up, flashed an OS to the SD-card and then sat back proudly, wondering why nobody other than me wanted to use the blasted thing. All through their lives, I’ve done it for them. Set-up new hardware, installed new software and acted as in-house technician whenever things went wrong. As a result, I have a family of digital illiterates.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Csonicgo

[bkrownd]

The sky is not falling. These kids view the arcana of operating the Apple ][ in much the same way as I would have at their age viewed swapping 9-track reel-to-reel storage tapes, proofing stacks of punch cards, or toggle-switch bootstrapping a 1970's floorstanding heavyweight computer. When the time came to do those things as an adult it was not a problem. (though I REALLY hated trying to load/feed/spool those damned 9-track tapes quickly in a time crunch! they gave me just a few seconds per tape to do it)

Edited July 25, 2014 by bkrownd

[Omega-TI]

... or the computer doesn't have a GUI with easy-to-use interface, then it's rarely used, and seen as "worthless"

 

So sad and yet so true. Actually one of my goals in my classic computing hobby is to make my old box USABLE for something PRACTICAL, not just to play a few old games on and gather dust. I guess in my own mind I need to justify the expense of pumping more $$ into that old box than my new state-of-the-art machine than can do things 10,000 times faster.

[John_L]

Pre-internet thinking is godlike in a post-internet world.

 

I could not disagree more. It's the pre-internet thinking that holds older people back from taking advantage of it. Everyday I hear people say "I wonder about this, or I wonder about that", and I say, I don't wonder anymore, I just look it up on the Internet. Also, some people are predisposed to spouting untrue bullshit because they think no one can verify the claim. I yank out my phone, look it up, and prove them wrong, hence, I'm not all that popular with those folks.... but so what, they're bullshitters.

[Keatah]

I can do that without my phone. And I don't police people either. When I use the internet, I use it with old-school thinking - get much better results.

 

Besides, I believe you mis-interpreted the original intent of what I said.

[flashjazzcat]

And don't forget there's plenty of bullshit on the Net.

[flashjazzcat]

http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ This blog article has a funny take on this:

Nice article. I've fallen foul of the WiFi enable switch on a laptop, but it only happens once.

[7800]

 

I could not disagree more. It's the pre-internet thinking that holds older people back from taking advantage of it. Everyday I hear people say "I wonder about this, or I wonder about that", and I say, I don't wonder anymore, I just look it up on the Internet. Also, some people are predisposed to spouting untrue bullshit because they think no one can verify the claim. I yank out my phone, look it up, and prove them wrong, hence, I'm not all that popular with those folks.... but so what, they're bullshitters.

 

So are you one of those people who believes everything they read on the internet? Don't forget to cross refrence and verify.