From: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Re: To love and have fun
Reply-To: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 00:30:36 GMT




In a previous article, xexeo@dxcern.cern.ch (Geraldo Xexeo) says:

>Iam not shure what this group is about, but I believe that is about loving
>computers.
>
It is about loving computers.  
Amateur computerists are those do computing for the love of it.

The amateur is as opposed to those who do computers for commercial 
purposes, so it was very nice to see the post "To love and have fun."



>My question is: there is any computer environment around where
>
>1) We can have fun as we had with CP/M based computers, Apple IIs ,
>TRS-80, and others (I had a lot of fun with a ZX-81).

I had lots of fun with simple basic programs on the Apple 2+.
Our family started with a Timex 1000 which was a ZX-81. It only had
2 k memory, but we were able to do miraculous things with it.

>
>2) We can do interesting things without having to read thousands
>of pages of documentation.
>
WE would try things out and find these interesting things it was
possible to do with the computer. But I think that was because
the programming language BASIC was built into computers like
the APPLE 2+ and a programming language like BASIC did give
the computer user the power to use the computer to do what
he or she wanted to do.

>3) We have computer power.
>
>  My point is, since I started using X-Windows and Unix, one
>should learn so MANY different things to do something fun that I found
>better to work (or read news) than to start personal projects.

Also, the TRY THIS programs in the hobbyist magazines seem less available,
instead the business applications have replaced them.

>
>  Other solution will be a language like Turbo Pascal: a nice, closed 
>environment where you can have fun.  

But also the BASIC programming language made it possible to do some
neat things quite simply.

But isn't USENET news an extension of computer power - that now 
instead of personal projects, one can try to help fashion social
breakthroughs - for example like the ever expanding universe of 
USENET news which computers have made possible?

That somehow the early hobbyist, amateur spirit is embodied now 
in the fact that both computers and people are able to communicate in a 
way never before imagined.

I agreed that it would be good to still have TRY THIS 
computer projects that make it fun to use ones computer. It would
be good to see some posted in this newsgroup and also to have some
to include in the Amateur Computerist newsletter. 

But also its been exciting to learn a bit about the history of usenet news
and realize how it grew out of just such  a spirit among its pioneers.

And that the efforts to make it commercial threaten the amateur spirit
that has helped usenet news grow and develop just as the commercial 
pressures led to the disappearance of the computers and magazines, etc.
which made it fun to play with ones computer.


>  Cheers,
>
>            Jerry


                     Long live the amateur computerists of the world,
                           they are needed now more than ever!
                               Ronda
-- 
Ronda Hauben                    email address:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
Amateur Computerist Newsletter              or
P.O. Box 4344                   rhauben@heartland.bradley.edu
Dearborn, MI 48126