The New Xerox and an Old Book

Apparently, one of my favorite search engines is becoming synonymous with the word “search.” Recently when I was facing a technical problem accessing my email account on another person’s computer, he stated, “Let me Google it!” Expecting him actually to go to Google, I observed that he used another search engine. I am sure Google does not mind this, as they are also part of a joint ad with an automobile manufacturer in which the ad tells interested viewers to “Google…” I am surprised we do not go around saying “Microsoft it” when suggesting the use of a computer. We probably owe a lot to the Mac crowd for preventing that.

I spent a little time today browsing through Computers and Reading Instruction, a 1993 publication by Leo D. Geoffrion and Olga P. Geoffion. It was a text for one of the graduate reading courses I was taking at the time. In the resource section are numerous references for reading programs for Apple II, TRS-80, Commodore and even Atari. We have sure come a long way but try getting an obscure audio part at Radio Shack. At the time they sold the TRS-80, the staff also knew audio and could get you the adaptor you needed and it was probably in stock. They also had a thick print catalog you could keep. I don’t think they even offer a PDF catalog today. (Marketers: Think about that!)

There was a cute story in the book explaining how the computers at the time of publication ran a program. It is given through a child’s perspective.

Well, what happens…this is the mouth (pointing to the cassette recorder)

and the computer eats the program off the tape. Then it goes through here

(the cassette cable) like a straw, to the computer’s stomach. Here’s its face

(the CRT screen) like a big eye, and you can look in and see what’s in the

Stomach….Then when you say RUN, the computer’s got the energy to run

‘cause it ate the program. If you don’t load the program, it can’t run ‘cause there’s no energy to….You know what else computers eat? Potato chips. I hear there’s lots of chips in these things.

The story comes from an article by M.M. Humphrey in Creative Computing Vol. 8, No. 4 (1982) entitled “All the scientists in the world smushed into one: What kids think about computers.”