19 Dec
1998
19 Dec
'98
10:22 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
One of the most depressing things I've done recently was buy a number of
books (some second-hand, some new) with titles like 'The boy mechanic',
'Every boy his own mechanic', etc.
OK, so the titles are sexist, and I do believe that's wrong, and that
there's no reason why girls shouldn't also be interested in this sort of
thing.
<stepping on soapbox>
I don't know what it is like in the UK, but here in the states, this
"sexist" revolution seems to be more of a we vs them type of confrontation
rather than working together. Publications such as "Womans this" and
"That
for Women" seem to be coming more popular, while "Mens this" and "That
for
Men" seem to be decried as sexist. The battle for "equality" seems to be
more lip service and rationalization than anything else.
<stepping off soapbox and back more on topic>
Some of the early electronic stories (Carl and Jerry from Popular
Electronics for one) seemed oriented towards building a curiosity about how
things work. I found I enjoyed very much the early Tom Swift books for much
the same reason. Back in 1975-76, the first very low cost chips started to
become available, and made it easier to work with almost state-of-the-art
stuff. I remember a special order of the 6800, 8 memory chips, and I
believe a couple of support chips being made available for $20 or so
(cosmetic rejects.)