Outside the Beltway

21st Century Kids Try To Figure Out Late 20th Century Computers

Doug Mataconis
8

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Here’s what happens when you introduce 21st century kids to an Apple II:

Previously, we saw how these kids react to a Walkman.

H/T: Mashable

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8 responses to “21st Century Kids Try To Figure Out Late 20th Century Computers”

  1. Ron Beasley Avatar
    Ron Beasley

    What would they do with a VIC 20 hooked up to their TV set?

  2. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    OK, I’m gonna geek out here, but I have to correct the record. Contrary to the info graphic in this video the Apple Lisa was not the first computer that had a graphical user interface and a mouse. The most famous was developed a full ten years before, the the Xerox Alto. It was widely used well before 1983 both inside and outside Xerox and was commercialized in a slightly cooler looking format as the Xerox Star (?). Steve Jobs toured Xerox PARC in the late 70’s and fell in love with the Alto, and that led to the Lisa. When asked by Byte Magazine if he resented people saying he took his ideas from Xerox PARC he replied ‘Someone had to do something with all that technology. Lord knows Xerox wasn’t using it.” (A quote from memory 25 or 30 years ago so – not very accurate) This was a bit unfair as Xerox invested millions in trying to commercialize this technology, along with laser printers, ethernet and as an early pioneer on ARPAnet, which we now know as the internet (and which Al Gore really did champion and fund as head of the Senate working group). And yes, I am old enough and fortunate enough to have worked at Xerox in 1981 to 1988 and can tell you that this stuff was really really cool.

  3. ernieyeball Avatar
    ernieyeball

    This must be an older computer. I trained on one in Jr. College in 1967. It was already obsolete and replaced by IBM 360.

    The 1401 was available in six memory configurations: 1.4K,[10] 2K, 4K, 8K, 12K, or 16K locations. A very small number of 1401s were expanded to 32K by special request. Each memory location was addressable, addresses were from 0 to 15999.

    http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/~mak/1401/IBM1401_TapeSystem_Mwhite.jpg
    My not so smart phone the LG EnV3 has a slot for an 8 GB MicroSD Card. Introduced in 2009, it is also pretty much obsolete.

  4. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    Get off my lawn!

    (To be fair, that Apple predates my own birth, the first computers I remember using were running MS-DOS and Windows 3.1/3.11, but at least I know what a floppy disk was/is.)

  5. James in Silverdale, WA Avatar
    James in Silverdale, WA

    You’ve not experienced a vintage system until you’ve played with a Wang.

  6. Tyrell Avatar
    Tyrell

    Those must be the kind of computers that the Affordable Health Care is using.

  7. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @James in Silverdale, WA: Ding! Ding! Ding! And today’s Winner of the Internets is… James in Silverdale, WA

  8. Anderson Avatar
    Anderson

    James: alas, my vintage Wang isn’t as responsive as it once was. Takes a while to come online.

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