I do something similar. Callers are routed to an IVR which requires you to press a key to prove you are not a robo caller. Asterisk's follow-me feature then rings my home and cell phones. If I don't pick up, YouMail takes voicemail and e-mails it to me. I used to send clueless callers to Lennie, but stopped when my banker got all the way through Lennie's script before realizing he had been fooled.
I have a simple but very effective screener for robo calls, built around the ObiHai 110. I connect the device between my incoming telephone line and my telephone. I then re-program it to send incoming calls to the Automatic Attendant, which I program to challenge the caller to press a key on his telephone keypad. If he doesn't he is a robo caller and doesn't get through. My phone doesn't even ring for robo calls.
Someday the robo callers will become intelligent enough to press a key when challenged, but until then my defense is adequate.
...For example, an old desktop computer in a heavy metal case, with a good ground, probably wouldn't notice the EMP... *except* for induced voltages coming in on the video, mouse and printer cables. Those would probably send the motherboard screaming into the shrubbery.:)
I saw this happen on a small scale a few years ago. There was an overnight lightning storm that affected a small office building across the parking lot from our main site. The fibre connection to the main building was not hurt, but about half the Ethernet transceivers in the small office building were fried. I took some money out of petty cash, walked across the street to the local computer store, and bought enough Ethernet cards to replace the failures.
Heck, one of the first things I do even with retail equipment is re-install everything to get rid of all the vender supplied bloat and "free" offers and get to a minimum install set. I do it for two reasons.. Clean out the junk and verify I have everything I need to recover the system in the future.
I do the same thing, and for the same two reasons. I once returned a server because I could not get it to work from the CDs they sent with it, after wiping the hard drive. When the vendor returned the server, the set of CDs was complete.
I built my house in 1969. We found a location at the end of a dead-end road to avoid traffic, well up a hill to avoid flooding, but below the top of the hill and protected by trees to avoid high winds. In construction we did three innovative things:
* two propane tanks, instead of the usual one
* water well under the house, so the pipe to the house will not freeze in the winter
* laundry room upstairs with the bedrooms, to avoid carrying clothing up and down stairs
When I remodeled in 2000 I added:
* central vacuum
* emergency electric generator fueled by the same propane tanks that fuel the heating, washing and cooking
* four Cat 5 cables from the wiring closet to each room
* so-called "radiant" heat, which means running heated water in pipes under the floors
* central air conditioning, plus two whole-house humidifiers
* a third stall on the garage, currently used for storage
Since then I have added:
* 30-amp exterior service for a parked recreational vehicle
* several retaining walls to stabilize the land, resulting in a terraced garden
* water service from the local water district, as a backup for the well
Perhaps in the summer of 2017 it will be cost-effective to add a solar roof.
I played my first computer game in 1963: Spacewar on a DEC PDP-1. I immediately started to learn how to write code, and have been doing it ever since. My son enjoyed video games when he was young. The desire to write video games motivated him to get a Computer Science degree, and he is now working in the industry.
the US space program had one OV structural test vehicle and one airframe mockup. The test vehicle was refit for service (and became Challenger), the airframe mockup named Enterprise and sent to a museum. Enterprise never actually went into orbit. She was used for atmospheric glide and landing testing....
There is also a Space Shuttle called Pathfinder on display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, near Huntsville, AL. See http://rocketcenter.com/museum, section Shuttle Park.
Three skills that will be invaluable to any HS student later in life:
(1) Good writing, i.e. being able to write well enough to communicate ideas effectively and convincingly (requires a lot of recreational reading, by the way, which doesn't seem particularly popular among the younger generation nowadays).
(2) Being able to stand up in front of an audience and give a good presentation.
(3) Knowing how to touch type.
Invaluable at age 18, and equally invaluable at age 68, no matter what direction your career leads you in.
Very true. The most valuable skill I learned in high school was typing. The second most valuable was public speaking. I more-or-less picked up writing skills later. I used all three in my 17 years as a software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation: typing for coding, writing for project plans and functional specifications, and public speaking for team meetings and DECUS presentations. I still use those skills today, at age 69.
Please teach all kids how to type at least 70-80 wpm. It is a skill they will use forever.
The most valuable skill I learned in high school was typing. My mother was a good typist, having worked for the US Navy as a secretary during World War II--she had a portable typewriter at home. More than 60 years after having graduated from high school I still type every day, mostly on a Unicomp keyboard.
The computer industry has seen a continual influx of new players. IBM was not the company driving prices down, it was the new players.
It should also be noted that the new computers are not drop in replacements for the old. Each new generation of computer could do things the old generation couldn't, making them effectively new products.
But IBM did bring prices down. In the 700/7000 series, each new model was more powerful,
and more affordable, than the machine it replaced. Also, each was a "drop-in" replacement for
the last. Even when IBM switched instruction sets for System/360, they had emulators that
let you run your old software, so they continued to produce drop-in replacements.
As late as the 1960s, Shell Oil was running software written for the IBM 704 using a 704
emulator for the IBM 709, itself running in emulation mode on a System/360 model 65.
They had re-written the application for the new computer, but the new version gave different
answers than the old, and people trusted the old program even though the new one gave
arguably better answers.
Early in the industry, the upstarts established the pattern that each new generation would be more powerful than the old, and a steady influx of new players kept coming along to add fuel to the fire. Even as recently as 2005, there have been new brand name entries entries into the PC market such as alienware. There is a continual introduction of new asian no-name brands.
To be sure, IBM had competition from the "bunch": Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell. Later there were other competitors, such as DEC and Prime. However, your three-point
economic theory of prices doesn't take them into account, assuming that the new entrants would
maintain the same prices as the established players.
That is a reasonable assumption, but it turns out not to
be correct. At the time that the million-dollar IBM 7090 was the standard of the industry, DEC
introduced the PDP-1 for $100,000. The PDP-1 could have sold for twice the price, so why did
DEC forego the additional profit? I am guessing it was because they estimated the size of the
market at each price point, and decided that $100,000 gave them the greatest total profit.
When the computer industry reaches maturity (The end of moores law), and each successive computer is not significantly different from the last, then there will be a culling of computer companies, and after that the prices will remain stable, even in the face of occasional reductions in manufacturing cost.
You are speculating about a time that is very far in the future.
A better place to look would be consumer electronics like DVD players and the like. A typical DVD player costs about $20 to make. They still sell for $100ish, a healthy margin. These could come down a lot, but none of the incumbent companies have any interest in dropping the prices for greater market share because it would be a race to the bottom. Every so often you see walmart causing some price reductions by introducing off brand asian devices at significantly reduced prices, but Walmart is in a unique monopoly position that almost no other company in history has enjoyed. Walmart has produced the price reductions that we would otherwise expect from a free market economy, but they have to abuse their monopoly position to do it (brow beating suppliers by refusing to carry their products otherwise). If Walmart had instead chose to maintain slightly higher prices, they could have pocketed a large portion of that profit for themselves (oh wait, they did...).
DVD players are unusual because they are heavily regulated by patents. If you tried to sell a DVD player that you build in your garage you would get sued into oblivion unless you paid the
DVD rights holders for every unit you sell. That wasn't, and isn't, true of computers, though not
for lack of trying. When DEC introduced the PDP-6, they got a letter from IBM t
Your argument is very rational, and almost persuades me. I say "almost" because computer prices have been coming down steadily for 60 years, even though none of your three criteria apply. I think the problem with your argument is that you assume all the established players in a market are rational. In fact, some are greedy and short-sighted. They will reduce their margin to gain market share, and not care that their competitors will eventually (next quarter) match their price reduction.
Apparently you are the one who doesn't understand economics. Prices are whatever the market can bear. If the costs can be lowered, it does not mean that the prices go down because they are already at whatever the market can bear. Prices will stay the same, corporate profits will raise.
You have over-simplified the economic situation. When costs fall, if there are enough sellers, one of them will reduce his profit margin to try to gain market share. The others must follow, until prices reach a new equilibrium. An example of this is the computer industry. Prices for a unit of computing capability have been falling steadily for 60 years.
I remember new year's eve Y2K, and everyone expecting blackouts, etc.. and me driving around with an X10 wireless remote,
sending random commands to sequential channels. People's lights went on and off, burglar alarms (dis)armed themselves,
garage doors opened, sprinklers sprinkled water onto the cold pavement (with great ice potential). People panicked....
Imag[in]e a person less mature than me....
I am finding it difficult to imagine a person less mature than yourself.
That is good to hear, and it does sound like I am being too distrustful, but here is my nightmare:
A company is founded by engineers, and builds up a base of loyal customers because they do their research, carefully assess risks, honestly estimate costs, and generally do a good job. They develop a reputation for excellence in their field. However, with the passage of time the founders retire and the sales and marketing people gradually begin to take control. The engineering department is considered just another cost center—it is starved of resources and does not have the ear of top management. The legal department is expected to get the necessary permits, and blamed if work has to stop because some stupid government rule is getting in the way of earning revenue. Top management cares only about profits, and middle management cares only about this quarter's numbers. New product development is limited to safe extensions of what the company is already doing successfully.
In this environment it is easy to imagine some middle manager, desperate to make his numbers, who decides that analyzing homeowner's wells is an unnecessary expense. When testing started the company informed the homeowners that they will be contacted if there is a problem with their well water, and if they do not hear from the company they can be assured that their water is good. Our middle manager doesn't renew the contract with the testing company, saving perhaps $100 per year per homeowner. Sampling stops, water testing stops, the manager has better expense numbers, homeowners are not inconvenienced by triennial visits from the water collection people, everyone wins.
Even people who are concerned about the quality of their well water might not notice that no sample was taken in the year it was expected. A letter to the company might even result in a carefully-worded response designed to be reassuring while promising nothing.
Of course, if a well pollution problem is eventually discovered the whole scheme blows up, but in the meantime my family has been poisoned.
...Your concern that polluter would not pay for an accredited lab is probably unfounded though. The cost of analysis for an accredited vs non-accredited lab is not that much, but more importantly if a case were to go to court, any non-accredited laboratory sample results would immediately be tossed out of evidence without a second chance.
My concern was not that the potential polluter would use a non-accredited lab, but that he wouldn't do any testing at all: just discard the samples and claim that there was no problem. I suppose I could deal with that possibility by demanding the analysis paperwork, but if I get stonewalled on my request, I have to have the testing done myself anyway. It seems simpler to just do it myself from the beginning. Am I being too distrustful?
I don't think I expressed myself well. My concern was that a potential polluter would not pay for an accredited lab to do the tests, but would just claim that there was no problem. By collecting the water myself, using the basic cookbook recipe, and sending it to an accredited lab of my choice, I would feel more confident in the report that there was no pollution.
I wasn't aware of the paper trail or the consequences of faking it. That means I don't need to be concerned that the potential polluter will simply dismiss the lab findings, forcing me to go to court. Of course, there is always the possibility that I screwed up the collection process, so I wouldn't mind a re-test, but I would insist that the collection be done under my supervision (so I can be sure the water being tested actually came from my well) and that the testing be done by a accredited lab.
I have a well which has provided me drinking water faithfully since 1969. Every few years I follow the cookbook recipe to collect tap water and send it to a local lab that I have learned to trust. So far, there has been no pollution.
... However we want our water quality (including well water, checked once a month at your expense, for as long as the pumps are active and 10 years after....
I would prefer that the water quality be checked at my expense. I wouldn't want the potential polluter to use his "in house" water testing facility, which might be biased. If my tester shows there is a problem, I'll send part of the sample to the potential polluter for verification, but if they balk because their numbers don't agree with the numbers from my chosen lab (which I will provide) it's lawsuit time.
Aha, we are now in agreement. My original objections were to your statement that
Older people (60+) seem to have the hardest time grasping the the difference between the concept of the Internet and a local hard drive..
followed by
In the general case, 60+ year old adults DO have the most problem with that...
.
I don't have any authority to back this up, but I suspect most pepole of all ages, even today, have trouble understanding the workings of computers, just as they do electricity or FAX machines. To most people, I suspect, these are simply magic.
AHH, I see the confusion. I *DID* say that people actually working in the field were the exception. I'm not speaking of them. I'm speaking of "muggles". Doctors, nurses, mechanics, engineers, lawyers, secretaries, etc. People not in the "DP" department.
Perhaps I saw a different type of "muggles" than you did. While most of the people I supported in the 1970s were in the computer department, some were not. They were generally the "best and the brightest" among the engineers, who used computers to do their jobs as they used every other resource they had access to. They might simulate a piece of hardware, for example, or compute the radiation pattern of an antenna.
Where I worked there were no mechanics, doctors or nurses, and the lawyers stayed in their offices on the top floor. We had secretaries but they didn't use computers.
I needed it to balance my checkbook. Keeping track of my expenses on paper was tedious and error-prone, and I knew computers could do better. That wasn't my only application; as I said, I also used it for word processing.
In the 1970s I didn't know anyone other than myself who had a computer at home. If I had been living in a city, or in Silicon Valley, I probably would have, but in suburban New Hampshire I was unusual. The people I supported in the early 1970s used computers at work. The application programmers coded in Fortran, assembler and COBOL using either punch cards or KSR-33 teletypes. You can't do that by rote. In the late 1970s I worked for DEC, and there we used VT52s, VT100s and their successors connected to various DEC computers to code in Bliss or assembler. The environment was very different, but none of the engineers operated by rote.
They were slow and expensive by today's standards, but I don't agree that they didn't do anything the average Joe needed to do. I bought an Apple II for word processing and spreadsheets, Visicalc being the "killer app" for the Apple II. Those are still two of the major uses of personal computers today.
I also don't agree that most adults who used a computer at work did so by rote. That may be true today, but it wasn't true in the 1970s and 1980s. You had to know what you were doing to get any useful work out of those beasts.
It isn't just people who worked in the field. Personal computers began to be popular in the late 1970s. Anyone over the age of 24 who bought an Apple II or Commodore 64 when they first came out would be 60 or over by now. Such people have had a long time to learn about computers.
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I do something similar. Callers are routed to an IVR which requires you to press a key to prove you are not a robo caller. Asterisk's follow-me feature then rings my home and cell phones. If I don't pick up, YouMail takes voicemail and e-mails it to me. I used to send clueless callers to Lennie, but stopped when my banker got all the way through Lennie's script before realizing he had been fooled.
I have a simple but very effective screener for robo calls, built around the ObiHai 110. I connect the device between my incoming telephone line and my telephone. I then re-program it to send incoming calls to the Automatic Attendant, which I program to challenge the caller to press a key on his telephone keypad. If he doesn't he is a robo caller and doesn't get through. My phone doesn't even ring for robo calls.
Someday the robo callers will become intelligent enough to press a key when challenged, but until then my defense is adequate.
...For example, an old desktop computer in a heavy metal case, with a good ground, probably wouldn't notice the EMP ... *except* for induced voltages coming in on the video, mouse and printer cables. Those would probably send the motherboard screaming into the shrubbery. :)
I saw this happen on a small scale a few years ago. There was an overnight lightning storm that affected a small office building across the parking lot from our main site. The fibre connection to the main building was not hurt, but about half the Ethernet transceivers in the small office building were fried. I took some money out of petty cash, walked across the street to the local computer store, and bought enough Ethernet cards to replace the failures.
Heck, one of the first things I do even with retail equipment is re-install everything to get rid of all the vender supplied bloat and "free" offers and get to a minimum install set. I do it for two reasons.. Clean out the junk and verify I have everything I need to recover the system in the future.
I do the same thing, and for the same two reasons. I once returned a server because I could not get it to work from the CDs they sent with it, after wiping the hard drive. When the vendor returned the server, the set of CDs was complete.
I built my house in 1969. We found a location at the end of a dead-end road to avoid traffic, well up a hill to avoid flooding, but below the top of the hill and protected by trees to avoid high winds. In construction we did three innovative things:
When I remodeled in 2000 I added:
Since then I have added:
Perhaps in the summer of 2017 it will be cost-effective to add a solar roof.
I played my first computer game in 1963: Spacewar on a DEC PDP-1. I immediately started to learn how to write code, and have been doing it ever since. My son enjoyed video games when he was young. The desire to write video games motivated him to get a Computer Science degree, and he is now working in the industry.
the US space program had one OV structural test vehicle and one airframe mockup. The test vehicle was refit for service (and became Challenger), the airframe mockup named Enterprise and sent to a museum. Enterprise never actually went into orbit. She was used for atmospheric glide and landing testing....
There is also a Space Shuttle called Pathfinder on display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, near Huntsville, AL. See http://rocketcenter.com/museum, section Shuttle Park.
Being responsible for writing the minutes is crucial. If it doesn't appear in the report of the meeting, it didn't happen.
Three skills that will be invaluable to any HS student later in life:
(1) Good writing, i.e. being able to write well enough to communicate ideas effectively and convincingly (requires a lot of recreational reading, by the way, which doesn't seem particularly popular among the younger generation nowadays).
(2) Being able to stand up in front of an audience and give a good presentation.
(3) Knowing how to touch type.
Invaluable at age 18, and equally invaluable at age 68, no matter what direction your career leads you in.
Very true. The most valuable skill I learned in high school was typing. The second most valuable was public speaking. I more-or-less picked up writing skills later. I used all three in my 17 years as a software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation: typing for coding, writing for project plans and functional specifications, and public speaking for team meetings and DECUS presentations. I still use those skills today, at age 69.
Please teach all kids how to type at least 70-80 wpm. It is a skill they will use forever.
The most valuable skill I learned in high school was typing. My mother was a good typist, having worked for the US Navy as a secretary during World War II--she had a portable typewriter at home. More than 60 years after having graduated from high school I still type every day, mostly on a Unicomp keyboard.
The computer industry has seen a continual influx of new players. IBM was not the company driving prices down, it was the new players.
It should also be noted that the new computers are not drop in replacements for the old. Each new generation of computer could do things the old generation couldn't, making them effectively new products.
But IBM did bring prices down. In the 700/7000 series, each new model was more powerful, and more affordable, than the machine it replaced. Also, each was a "drop-in" replacement for the last. Even when IBM switched instruction sets for System/360, they had emulators that let you run your old software, so they continued to produce drop-in replacements. As late as the 1960s, Shell Oil was running software written for the IBM 704 using a 704 emulator for the IBM 709, itself running in emulation mode on a System/360 model 65. They had re-written the application for the new computer, but the new version gave different answers than the old, and people trusted the old program even though the new one gave arguably better answers.
Early in the industry, the upstarts established the pattern that each new generation would be more powerful than the old, and a steady influx of new players kept coming along to add fuel to the fire. Even as recently as 2005, there have been new brand name entries entries into the PC market such as alienware. There is a continual introduction of new asian no-name brands.
To be sure, IBM had competition from the "bunch": Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell. Later there were other competitors, such as DEC and Prime. However, your three-point economic theory of prices doesn't take them into account, assuming that the new entrants would maintain the same prices as the established players. That is a reasonable assumption, but it turns out not to be correct. At the time that the million-dollar IBM 7090 was the standard of the industry, DEC introduced the PDP-1 for $100,000. The PDP-1 could have sold for twice the price, so why did DEC forego the additional profit? I am guessing it was because they estimated the size of the market at each price point, and decided that $100,000 gave them the greatest total profit.
When the computer industry reaches maturity (The end of moores law), and each successive computer is not significantly different from the last, then there will be a culling of computer companies, and after that the prices will remain stable, even in the face of occasional reductions in manufacturing cost.
You are speculating about a time that is very far in the future.
A better place to look would be consumer electronics like DVD players and the like. A typical DVD player costs about $20 to make. They still sell for $100ish, a healthy margin. These could come down a lot, but none of the incumbent companies have any interest in dropping the prices for greater market share because it would be a race to the bottom. Every so often you see walmart causing some price reductions by introducing off brand asian devices at significantly reduced prices, but Walmart is in a unique monopoly position that almost no other company in history has enjoyed. Walmart has produced the price reductions that we would otherwise expect from a free market economy, but they have to abuse their monopoly position to do it (brow beating suppliers by refusing to carry their products otherwise). If Walmart had instead chose to maintain slightly higher prices, they could have pocketed a large portion of that profit for themselves (oh wait, they did...).
DVD players are unusual because they are heavily regulated by patents. If you tried to sell a DVD player that you build in your garage you would get sued into oblivion unless you paid the DVD rights holders for every unit you sell. That wasn't, and isn't, true of computers, though not for lack of trying. When DEC introduced the PDP-6, they got a letter from IBM t
Your argument is very rational, and almost persuades me. I say "almost" because computer prices have been coming down steadily for 60 years, even though none of your three criteria apply. I think the problem with your argument is that you assume all the established players in a market are rational. In fact, some are greedy and short-sighted. They will reduce their margin to gain market share, and not care that their competitors will eventually (next quarter) match their price reduction.
Apparently you are the one who doesn't understand economics. Prices are whatever the market can bear. If the costs can be lowered, it does not mean that the prices go down because they are already at whatever the market can bear. Prices will stay the same, corporate profits will raise.
You have over-simplified the economic situation. When costs fall, if there are enough sellers, one of them will reduce his profit margin to try to gain market share. The others must follow, until prices reach a new equilibrium. An example of this is the computer industry. Prices for a unit of computing capability have been falling steadily for 60 years.
I remember new year's eve Y2K, and everyone expecting blackouts, etc.. and me driving around with an X10 wireless remote, sending random commands to sequential channels. People's lights went on and off, burglar alarms (dis)armed themselves, garage doors opened, sprinklers sprinkled water onto the cold pavement (with great ice potential). People panicked....
Imag[in]e a person less mature than me ....
I am finding it difficult to imagine a person less mature than yourself.
If you have a deep well, the source of pollution doesn't have to be uphill from you.
That is good to hear, and it does sound like I am being too distrustful, but here is my nightmare:
A company is founded by engineers, and builds up a base of loyal customers because they do their research, carefully assess risks, honestly estimate costs, and generally do a good job. They develop a reputation for excellence in their field. However, with the passage of time the founders retire and the sales and marketing people gradually begin to take control. The engineering department is considered just another cost center—it is starved of resources and does not have the ear of top management. The legal department is expected to get the necessary permits, and blamed if work has to stop because some stupid government rule is getting in the way of earning revenue. Top management cares only about profits, and middle management cares only about this quarter's numbers. New product development is limited to safe extensions of what the company is already doing successfully.
In this environment it is easy to imagine some middle manager, desperate to make his numbers, who decides that analyzing homeowner's wells is an unnecessary expense. When testing started the company informed the homeowners that they will be contacted if there is a problem with their well water, and if they do not hear from the company they can be assured that their water is good. Our middle manager doesn't renew the contract with the testing company, saving perhaps $100 per year per homeowner. Sampling stops, water testing stops, the manager has better expense numbers, homeowners are not inconvenienced by triennial visits from the water collection people, everyone wins.
Even people who are concerned about the quality of their well water might not notice that no sample was taken in the year it was expected. A letter to the company might even result in a carefully-worded response designed to be reassuring while promising nothing.
Of course, if a well pollution problem is eventually discovered the whole scheme blows up, but in the meantime my family has been poisoned.
...Your concern that polluter would not pay for an accredited lab is probably unfounded though. The cost of analysis for an accredited vs non-accredited lab is not that much, but more importantly if a case were to go to court, any non-accredited laboratory sample results would immediately be tossed out of evidence without a second chance.
My concern was not that the potential polluter would use a non-accredited lab, but that he wouldn't do any testing at all: just discard the samples and claim that there was no problem. I suppose I could deal with that possibility by demanding the analysis paperwork, but if I get stonewalled on my request, I have to have the testing done myself anyway. It seems simpler to just do it myself from the beginning. Am I being too distrustful?
I don't think I expressed myself well. My concern was that a potential polluter would not pay for an accredited lab to do the tests, but would just claim that there was no problem. By collecting the water myself, using the basic cookbook recipe, and sending it to an accredited lab of my choice, I would feel more confident in the report that there was no pollution.
I wasn't aware of the paper trail or the consequences of faking it. That means I don't need to be concerned that the potential polluter will simply dismiss the lab findings, forcing me to go to court. Of course, there is always the possibility that I screwed up the collection process, so I wouldn't mind a re-test, but I would insist that the collection be done under my supervision (so I can be sure the water being tested actually came from my well) and that the testing be done by a accredited lab.
I have a well which has provided me drinking water faithfully since 1969. Every few years I follow the cookbook recipe to collect tap water and send it to a local lab that I have learned to trust. So far, there has been no pollution.
... However we want our water quality (including well water, checked once a month at your expense, for as long as the pumps are active and 10 years after....
I would prefer that the water quality be checked at my expense. I wouldn't want the potential polluter to use his "in house" water testing facility, which might be biased. If my tester shows there is a problem, I'll send part of the sample to the potential polluter for verification, but if they balk because their numbers don't agree with the numbers from my chosen lab (which I will provide) it's lawsuit time.
Aha, we are now in agreement. My original objections were to your statement that
Older people (60+) seem to have the hardest time grasping the the difference between the concept of the Internet and a local hard drive..
followed by
In the general case, 60+ year old adults DO have the most problem with that...
.
I don't have any authority to back this up, but I suspect most pepole of all ages, even today, have trouble understanding the workings of computers, just as they do electricity or FAX machines. To most people, I suspect, these are simply magic.
AHH, I see the confusion. I *DID* say that people actually working in the field were the exception. I'm not speaking of them. I'm speaking of "muggles". Doctors, nurses, mechanics, engineers, lawyers, secretaries, etc. People not in the "DP" department.
Perhaps I saw a different type of "muggles" than you did. While most of the people I supported in the 1970s were in the computer department, some were not. They were generally the "best and the brightest" among the engineers, who used computers to do their jobs as they used every other resource they had access to. They might simulate a piece of hardware, for example, or compute the radiation pattern of an antenna.
Where I worked there were no mechanics, doctors or nurses, and the lawyers stayed in their offices on the top floor. We had secretaries but they didn't use computers.
I needed it to balance my checkbook. Keeping track of my expenses on paper was tedious and error-prone, and I knew computers could do better. That wasn't my only application; as I said, I also used it for word processing.
In the 1970s I didn't know anyone other than myself who had a computer at home. If I had been living in a city, or in Silicon Valley, I probably would have, but in suburban New Hampshire I was unusual. The people I supported in the early 1970s used computers at work. The application programmers coded in Fortran, assembler and COBOL using either punch cards or KSR-33 teletypes. You can't do that by rote. In the late 1970s I worked for DEC, and there we used VT52s, VT100s and their successors connected to various DEC computers to code in Bliss or assembler. The environment was very different, but none of the engineers operated by rote.
What was your situation like?
They were slow and expensive by today's standards, but I don't agree that they didn't do anything the average Joe needed to do. I bought an Apple II for word processing and spreadsheets, Visicalc being the "killer app" for the Apple II. Those are still two of the major uses of personal computers today.
I also don't agree that most adults who used a computer at work did so by rote. That may be true today, but it wasn't true in the 1970s and 1980s. You had to know what you were doing to get any useful work out of those beasts.
It isn't just people who worked in the field. Personal computers began to be popular in the late 1970s. Anyone over the age of 24 who bought an Apple II or Commodore 64 when they first came out would be 60 or over by now. Such people have had a long time to learn about computers.
No, we don't.
I agree, but I do think it is reasonable to protect people from other people doing stupid stuff.