15 Jun
2004
15 Jun
'04
11:33 a.m.
Fair warning, the following message contains the ratings of a single
individual.
Not at all!. I stand by what I said, and it has nothing to do with being
anti-PC.
IMHO the Acorn Archimedes (and the Beeb before it) is a better machine
for teaching computing than the PC. Teaching computing is not teaching
what key to press, or what to click with the mouse in Word, Excel, or
whatever word processor and spreadsheet are favourite this week
If you understand the principles you can pick up the latest applications
in an afternoon at most (and any you learn now will probably have been
replaced in a few years anyway).
Spreadsheets are a good example. Far too many people use them without a
clear understanding of rounding errors, stability of algorithms,
convergence, and so on. The results may well be meaningless as a result
(I have seen this happen from 'scientists' who darn well should know
better!).
>>> Sounds like somebody grabbed the old
machines when a school downgraded
their computer facilities to PCs...
As shown by the above quote, there is a strong anti "PeeCee" bias by many
here. While I completely agree that there are
significant *problems* with
both the hardware and (Windoze) software, I do believe that the more extreme
FWIW< I've been through the schematics of all the original IBM machines.
To say there are 'significant problems' is probably the understatement of
the year!
-tony