[17]        Interview with Staff Member Michael Hauben 
   on the Occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Personal Computer

(Editor's Note: This interview was conducted on August 11, 1991.
It has been edited.)

Ronda: Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the introduction of
the IBM personal computer on August 12, 1981. Also, one of our
staff members, Michael Hauben, is leaving Michigan to go to
college in N.Y. Therefore, it seemed an appropriate time to look
back on the past 10 years and to review how the introduction of
the personal computer has affected our lives. Michael is now 18.
In 1981 he was 8 years old and already involved with computers.
Michael is not only one of the beneficiaries of the computer
revolution. The computer revolution was carried out, not so much
by companies like IBM, but more importantly, by computer
hobbyists like Michael Hauben. Thus in honor of the computer
hobbyists, who gave birth to and developed the personal computer,
we would like to review some of your experiences, Michael, with
the computer.

William: How did you get started with computers?

Michael: The first place I really saw computers was at an exhibit
in Toronto over 10 years ago. There was a robot that was like the
4 axes machine that auto workers use. They also had a computer
exhibit. I don't remember what kind of computer was on display
but they were just a bunch of computers running different kinds
of programs set up there at the Canadian National Exhibit. That
really peaked my interest somehow.
   When I was 8 (in 1981), I took a computer class at Schoolcraft
Community College, in what was called the Kids College. It was
part of what they called the TAG (Talented and Gifted) Program.
The teacher's name was Mrs. Brown. We learned on the Apple II+'s.
The first day of class, Mrs. Brown lifted the top of the APPLE
and said, "There, that's all there is to it, There's nothing to
be afraid of." That was a very good introduction to the computer
because it showed there was nothing to be afraid of. That we
could completely control it. I learned BASIC there. I took
several other classes in that program. I think I took three. I
didn't take all the BASIC language classes offered. But I took a
test that they had for their normal BASIC college level classes
and I wound up getting three college credits for the BASIC
language class. And I didn't do so good because I ended up only
getting a B on the test. But the experience was interesting and
from then on whenever there was a computer available I tried to
use it.
   After the trip to Toronto, I always wanted to buy a computer.
There was the Texas Instruments 99/4a (TI 99/4a) and I don't
remember how much it cost, but it was expensive. There was the
Timex Sinclair 1000 (TS 1000) and that was much cheaper. My
family and I had seen Sinclair computers in England when we
visited. These computers could be hooked up to a normal t.v. set.
I saved up my money and bought a TS-1000. Using it I more
thoroughly learned BASIC. My father and I programmed a lot in
BASIC with only 2K memory. We never seemed to run out of memory.
We just played around and tried to do lots of different things,
tried writing little games, graphics and we dabbled a little in
machine language, not a lot however. Whenever I had the chance,
whether it was summer camp or in a computer store, I'd try to do
something with the computer. I learned BASIC, I learned LOGO on
the TI-99/4a in Camp, and I played around with APPLES and with
Commodore PETS. In my elementary school, there was a terminal
hooked in with the mainframe of the Dearborn Schools. At that
time there were many programs on the mainframe. They had BASIC.
They had games like the OREGON TRAIL, etc. I subscribed to two or
three magazines for the TS-1000. I bought books, did all the TRY
THIS type of small programs. Those were always fun because there
would always be problems with the programs. There would always be
bugs. The books and sample programs were exciting somehow. I
haven't found many books similar for programming on the IBM PCs
today, books that I have found exciting for a hobbyist. And this
is sad.
   Soon after I bought the TS-1000, it couldn't have been more
than a couple of years, I was trying to choose between the
TS-2068 and the Commodore 64. I think the Commodore was more
expensive. The TS-2068 had better color, and a more developed
version of BASIC. The Commodore 64 was better in that it had a
disk drive and the TS-1000 only had a tape drive you could use.
The Commodore also had a real keyboard, while the Timex utilized
raised chicklet keys. I bought the TS-2068. Then I had my first
real lesson in the computer world. Three months after I bought
the TS-2068, Timex stopped selling it and supporting it. Timex
made a deal with Commodore. There was an agreement to sell the
Sinclair in England and Europe and Commodore in the United
States. That was a shock because I thought I made a better
choice, but it turned out the better deal is not always the best
choice.
   And my father and I did programming on that, but not really as
much as we did on the TS-1000. It was a lot less, even though
there was the added attraction of the color and the sound and the
joystick port. And so I still did things and I tried to pick up
on things whenever I could.
   Christmas of 1984, we bought a Sanyo MBC-550-2 which was a
MS-DOS compatible, but not an IBM compatible, machine. The
operating system was IBM compatible, but the graphics were
different, the sound was different, and the BASIC was different.
The Sanyo was a better machine for graphics, I think 640 x 400
with 4 colors if not 16. And WordStar worked. That's why my
family got it as a wordprocessor. I learned MS-Dos. I got more
into the PC world. We subscribed to a Sanyo magazine for a while.
We went to the Sanyo Users' groups for a while. We occasionally
went to SEMCO (Southeast Michigan Computer Organization), but
somehow that was already oriented toward business and they
weren't very interested in helping us. Then in 1985, through
INACOMP, my mother won a Compaq Portable. It was one of the
earliest to come out that was fully IBM compatible. It was a
luggable portable, and it weighed about 20 pounds, if not more.
And that's how I really got into IBM. We had a choice between a
modem and a hard drive. We got a modem. It was a breakthrough.
The hard drive seemed important but the modem was more important.
We wound up getting a hard drive later on. With the modem, it
lets you connect to the outside world. With your own little
system you'd be like a hermit, but in connecting with the rest of
the world, it's other people's opinions, different discussions
about computers, about current events, debates about what's going
on in the world and just general BS also. And you came into
contact with people, you came into contact with different files
to use with your computer, with what was going on with the
computer scene and so somehow it was like a replacement for a
user group. And depending upon the time, there was either a lot
going on or a little going on.

Ronda: What do you mean?

Michael: Well right now not many boards I know have much debate
on them. There are two that I am on. Both of them have debates
on-going. I'm sure there are others, but I just haven't had time
to look. But for a while I was on many of the boards and at one
point many of the boards were silly contests to see who could
post the most numerous messages.

Ronda: Do you have a sense what you were looking for on the
BBS's? You used to spend a lot of time on them.

Michael: Well at first I wasn't on local BBS's. Originally, I was
on COMPUSERVE.

William: Free time?

Michael: Well, the first two hours were free. I almost became a
beta-tester for Infocom through COMPUSERVE. I sent in the
application forms. I then received a congratulations letter, but
Infocom never sent me any games to test. The only response was a
Christmas card. That was a soured Compuserve memory. I found some
local BBS numbers listed on Compuserve and from my father and
some friends of his from work. For a while I was mostly on
Commodore BBS's and not many IBM boards. But then I started
calling the IBM boards. It was new for me when I started.
Modeming was a connection to the outside world to other people
with similar interests. It was interesting the debates about
current events. Somehow there was the possibility for
intellectual discussion which I couldn't find elsewhere besides
my parents and a few friends like Floyd Hoke-Miller. But among my
friends at school or neighbors, there wasn't much of a
possibility.
   When we lived in East Dearborn, our next door neighbor, Tom,
had an Atari and a Commodore 64. He shared an interest in
computers with me. He was my friend, even though there was a
large age gap, because we were both interested in computers. He
let me come over and try some things on his computer and I'd go
with him to computer stores.

William: Another thing about modems you can't tell the age.
Treats you more like an equal.

Michael: There's an anonymity. You don't know anything about the
other users. So you are more willing to accept them. There are
still first impressions. If you act like a real idiot, people
won't like you. But the full element of first impressions is left
out. And people tend to rank you or be friends with you on how
you act on-line, what you speak about. It does help. You tend to
get to know the people and there isn't as much blocking. And my
first handle was Wizkid. I changed my handle 2 or 3 years ago to
Sentinel. And there was one person who signed on and said it was
great knowing you. He was one of the people who knew me as
Wizkid. There was a "Remembering the OLD Days" theme area on one
of the BBS's and someone said, "remember that Wizkid." And I
said, "that was me." And he said he didn't know that. When people
change their handles, it's public but somehow people don't always
realize it. When I changed my handle, I decreased my activity.
When I decreased my activity it was because there were just silly
messages that didn't mean anything, or they just seemed juvenile,
and I don't know if that's because the people calling were
younger or they were more juvenile. The way people accept you is
based on your maturity on-line and your maturity showed through
more than your age. And there was one debate where someone said
you are just a kid. And I used to have the handle Wizkid. But it
didn't matter what your age was, it was more how mature you were.
He was trying to say "Well you're just a kid, you can't know
anything." But he was wrong. So there is less age discrimination
on the boards.

Ronda: Why did you decrease the time you spent on the boards?

Michael: I had to spend more time with school, with friends, with
my job. Whenever I used to come home from school, I used to spend
2 or 3 hours, but then my mom said, "We need the phone." So I
didn't spend my free time before homework on the modem. And then
with work, I wasn't even home on certain days to use the modem.

Ronda: But it seemed you were also a little disappointed. There
were user parties, but it seemed the computer world didn't extend
outside of the modem.

Michael: It did to a certain extent, but it didn't include
everyone. Like some people were friends before. There were modem
parties where people from the boards got together, whether it was
a software swap or a party.

Ronda: There weren't many, were there?

Michael: Well, what happened was the main person who had the
parties was from a TAG board in Taylor. He had his computer
stolen after the 2nd or 3rd party. So he stopped holding them.
Then there were multiuser boards. There was M-Net which was a
multi-user. The general ages of the users on M-Net was older than
on the other single-user BBS's. And it was more serious. It was
more a UNIX board. It was a different bunch. It was not the home
but the people in school, in Ann Arbor. It seemed like the
multi-user boards made it easier to hold parties because users
could chat live one-on-one. And when AMUSERS (a multi-user board)
closed down, I didn't get on other multi-users that were like
AMUSERS. Some people already were friends but you didn't end up
doing much so it was a little disappointing.  Cause it didn't
seem like there was any it didn't get anywhere it was just
on-line so that was a little disconcerting. It was disappointing
because that was where I had found more intellectual people but
it didn't go anywhere. And things like COMPUSERVE cost a lot of
money. There's COMPUSERVE, there's Delphi, there's Geni, there's
PC Link, there's Q-link, there's a couple of services but they
all cost money, so that's hard to deal with. And then there are
bigger boards that exist. But they all cost money. There's the
WELL. That's in California. You also pay per hour like
Compuserve. So it's harder to be on. It's like M-Net. It's the
same software as M-Net. And maybe I did find it disappointing. It
used to be there would be lots of new BBS's popping up. But they
were interesting. And now there still are lots of new BBS's
popping up. But they're silly. So it's gone downhill a little
bit. And also BBS's are similar to the CB or the Ham radio in
that people voice their opinions, or have discussions or chat or
there used to be DDial's all they were were multi-user, people
chatting, but they were 300 baud so they were super slow. Some of
those you had to acquire membership. But they were linked up
across the country. There were things called LINKS that would
connect you to other DDial's around the country. So that way you
could talk to people.
   Somehow the thing about BBS's was it was the ultimate vehicle
of Free Speech, uncensored speech. For the most part things were
not censored. What you posted was left alone. It was like
everyone's Letter to the Editor was allowed to be printed. There
would be letters debating other previous letters. Different
SysOps had different rules and some would delete messages that
contained profanity or were only personal attacks or something.
BBS's are the greatest form of free speech. The problem was you
needed a modem and a computer to get into it. So it's not as free
as it might be, but compared to the newspapers, the newspapers
print what they choose, whereas on BBS's everything is printed,
everything is published. It's more of a dynamic medium than a
static medium because depending on the board there's different
forms of dealing with messages. For example, some boards after
the first 50 messages go by, the first message is deleted, so
it's a dynamic thing. Unless somebody prints out a copy or saves
it to disk, it doesn't stay static. Like on M-Net, things aren't
deleted. They are deleted when the message SysOp of the area
decides no one is interested anymore. That's more of a choice
method of deletion, than where it deletes messages or the new one
pops in, the old one pops out and it's deleted. And even
depending on what happens, it's still an important medium.
   There was, for example, just a debate about the war against
IRAQ on BBS's. Usually you didn't see where there was dissent.
Whereas on the computer, if people wanted to, they could debate
it and there was debate about it. A free medium. It's open
access. Not closed. It's also a field where the hobbyist still
exists. There are people who develop ways of using the modem,
whether it's different compression techniques where you can send
more and larger files quicker, or whether it's different file
protocols that send them faster over phone lines. Those are
constantly developing. That is a hobbyist frontier now. Maybe
there are less people than when the computer started out. But it
still exists. It's a frontier that's not closed up yet. It's not
definite yet. New things are continuing to come out. For example,
higher speed chips for the serial ports in the computer so that
the computer can talk to the modem at a higher speed and
everything.

                             Part II 

Ronda: Do you think there are any lessons from what is going on?

Michael: Well, the Timex/Sinclair Commodore agreement was proof
that the best choice is not always for the best. The best product
does not always end up being marketed or sold. That seems true of
many things in this capitalist world. Sony's Beta video system
was technologically superior to the current VHS standard. I don't
know if there is a lesson to draw or not. A similar problem is
occurring with computer magazines. In particular I am thinking
of: Popular Computing, Family Computing, PC Computing, Creative
Computing, and Compute. Most of the magazines have changed their
priorities from an emphasis on hobbyist or home users to
business. Popular Computing disappeared shortly after changing
its name to Business Computing. The same thing happened with
Family Computing after it changed its name and emphasis to Home
and Office Computing. Unfortunately PC Computing is following the
same path. PC Computing started out as an alternative to other
magazines such as PC Magazine and PC for the home or hobbyist
crowd in the PC community. It had reviews of games and broader
articles, while being a smidgen less technical and completely
unconnected to a business point of view. The subtitle is now "The
magazine for Business Computing Experts." Readers have recognized
the change and written letters to the editor to comment and
complain. As for other examples, Creative Computing vanished and
Compute compressed down to one magazine from what was four.
However, Commodore 64s still sell, and that is a viable
community. I guess PCs are coming home from the office, but that
doesn't mean they are only used for business at home. A whole
community seems to be left un-serviced by this trend in computer
magazines. True, computer gaming magazines exist, but home
computers are used for much more than just playing games. One
problem is that PCs are not particularly getting cheaper. Any
decrease in price has more or less been incidental to the
increase in power. The 386s (Intel 80386) cost today what the 286
(Intel 80286) cost yesterday. But there are still no really
affordable computers in the $100 to $200 range. This is sad,
because the computer is not as affordable as it should be. Thus,
personal computers are still not a normal part of most households
which was the real goal of the personal computer revolution.
While most homes have been affected by the arrival of
microprocessors in many home appliances, the Personal Computer
itself is not yet a home appliance.  The general recent trend of
computer development is aimed at business, as opposed to the
people. Not for the majority, but for the minority. It's like
what IBM did for the mainframe and other mainframe manufacturers
in the '50s, '60s and '70s. The mainframe then was only
affordable by the biggest of the big companies or the large
educational institution. The difference today is that small
business can afford computers, but still only businesses.
Computers are marketed as for businesses and entrepreneurs, and
not for the average person at home, or for the majority of the
people. The radical push of the personal computer movement in the
mid to late '70s was to make the computer available to everyone,
and not just accessible to Fortune 500 companies. True, these
days computers are much more affordable than 20 years ago, but
the general movement in the personal computer world seems opposed
to its roots.

Ronda: How so?

Michael: IBM exemplifies this movement with the release of their
PS/2 line. These computers have a proprietary bus. IBM changed
the name away from Personal Computer to Personal System/2 which
is more like the main-frame names. It made it less friendly in
that sense.

Ronda: Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? What do you think will be
the future with computers? With you and computers?

Michael: Well by going away to school I'll gain more access to
what's called the Internet, the big net that exists, the
connection of computers across this country and across the world.
You gain more access when you go into an educational community.
I'm optimistic because of that. I'll have to manage that as part
of my time. Businesses and education are involved in that. It's
harder if you live at home to have access to it. (Editor's Note:
Home access is more available now, than it was a year ago when
this interview was done.) Somehow you need something powerful
enough to hook into. It's not quite fully open. If you live near
an educational community you can gain access to it. I have and
you can. Our connection is MichNet. So that will be broadening.
That will be a connection with the rest of the world
computerwise, but it's not quite just the computer. So that's
encouraging.
   Somehow they are working on building things smaller and more
minuscule but not quite pricewise. The computers aren't quite
like the microwave and the VCR. Home appliances started out
expensive but there are now so many different companies making
them that they have come down in price so they are affordable. As
I said before computer performance increased but it doesn't come
down in price. Actually, it's going to be a stretch to buy a
computer for myself, but I wouldn't have been able to buy one
last year. What used to be $2000 is now $1000 or coming closer to
$1000.

Ronda: Do you think there has been some kind of revolution with
computers? Do you think there has been a computer revolution?

Michael: Well, there is the personal computer. If it was up to
the big companies, there wouldn't have been one. As I said the
corporate trend is reactionary.

Ronda: Do you think there's been a computer revolution, William?

William: What do you mean by a computer revolution?

Ronda: That something fundamental has changed because of the
computer.

William: Fundamental?

Ronda: Or something substantial that you see at work?

William: We're using computers more. We've got IBM 486 computers
on the shop floor.

Michael: But what do you use them for?

William: For altering and transferring programs to our CNC
machining center. We got rid of the Westinghouse computer in the
computer room and you can download more files into the 486
computer. It has all our files already. It won't hold us up when
we are running the machine.

Ronda: But the computer isn't being used to run a machine?

William: No it's not to run a machine directly. You have other
computers for that.

Michael: So the computers are like terminals?

William: It's like a database. But you can edit and change the
data if you need to.

Ronda: Are most people comfortable with them. Or is it that if
people don't have home computers it's harder to use them?

William: Well they have menus instead of working with DOS. It
just takes a F[unction] key and that is it. We finally got a
manual for it. The editor is difficult to work with. They're
still working on a new editor....

Ronda: Remember they were talking about the workerless factory in
the last 7 or 8 years. My sense is that hasn't come to pass.

William: Well, there are a lot less people working in my shop.
They're standardizing everything so there's less skill involved
in putting dies together.

Ronda: But the computer hasn't cut the people out or caused
problems?

William: No.

Ronda: So do you think there's been some kind of computer
revolution in the last 10 or 15 years? That something substantial
has happened to change....

William: Society?

Michael: Well a lot of things have computer chips in them now.
All your household appliances have them from the tv set on.

William: Cars have them.

Michael: Cars have them now so society has been changed by the
introduction of them. The mainframe computer didn't use
processing chips. It took buildings with several floors to house
those computers. But now, the personal computer is the
achievement of the trend of miniaturization that came in the
1950s.

William: More like evolution, right. You got chips in tv's now.
You got picture-in-picture, not revolution, not a substantial
change.

Michael: Well, there was the miniaturization after WWII but it
didn't hit computers then. Computers were still the great big
mainframes that used the vacuum tubes. Then came the transistor,
the microprocessor, and the integrated circuit. But they weren't
really utilized with the mainframes. Or if they were, instead of
a whole floor, it was a room. But it wasn't down to a single chip
which now exists and which is constantly getting smaller. They
think they're reaching the bounds actually. Now people are
speculating that the silicon chip has reached its physical speed
and size limits and a new material needs to be used, like
chemical or biological materials instead of electronic.  But I
feel if it had not been for the personal computer revolution,
there wouldn't be such use of processing chips and use of
computing technology involved in so many things in our daily
lives.

Ronda: But I feel the substantial question is are they being used
to produce more with less labor? I think they are being used more
as consumer goods. But it doesn't sound like there has been a
change, a fundamental change in the way things are produced. For
example, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people
worked in their homes. Then people were brought into the
factories to work together. There was an increasing division of
labor, and then machines were introduced and people operated the
machines. Then machines were used to operate other machines.
   It doesn't seem as if the computer has led to a similar kind
of change in industrial production. It doesn't seem that
computers are widely used to produce things. It seems the
computer has been used for paperwork but not for producing goods.

William: It takes longer to get a computer to do something than
it does a machine. They are probably working on that stuff too.

Michael: But actually there's something called CAD/CAM or
Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing. But then there's
something called CIM which I did study and it seemed like it was
trying to steal the computer and give it to management which was
a top down design and not a bottom up design. When I read about
it two years ago it seemed a flop. It was trying to steal the
computers from the people rather than using the computers to help
the manufacturing process. But I don't know what your experience
has been with CIM.

Ronda: But there was also a big push to lower wages and have
people work a lot of overtime. And I thought that got in the way
of using the computer to make production more efficient.

William: You also had international competition too. Third world
countries have cheaper labor. So we had to compete with them. So
that's one reason why the lower wages.

Ronda: But you can never compete with the cheapest country, and
in fact the story of production is that the higher the wages, the
more advanced the technology, the less labor that goes into
producing something, the cheaper it can be sold for. Somehow the
whole stress of trying to make U.S. workers compete with workers
in less industrialized countries is a backwards trend. The price
of things is very high because hand labor is very expensive. So
in this country we had the ability to make production more
efficient, that's the story of how cars have gotten cheaper, how
microwaves have gotten cheaper, how air conditioners have gotten
cheaper because there were more advanced technologies, not
because you found someone abroad to work for cheaper wages. With
cheaper wages and backward production methods, the price of goods
stays high. There is a need for more public discussion over how
computers can be used to change industrial production. There was
a fight with the corporate world over what would happen with
computers and people had to challenge the corporate barrage
demanding wage cuts and longer hours which impede automation.
There are examples of countries where advanced technology that
was available was never used in production because workers' wages
were so low or their hours so long that it was not cost efficient
to put in the new machine. So that country remained
technologically backward. The story of the development of
technology is that the more advanced technology somewhere
replaces the lower wage backward technology somewhere else, not
that goods made by low wage workers replace goods made with less
human labor and operating more efficient machines. But workers
have to organize to prevent the wage cuts and increased hours
that impede the introduction of new technology. Somehow the
corporate attack on workers and unions has led to people looking
backward, not keeping our eye on how to go forward.

Ronda: Any final words?

Michael: Even though I have decided to go to Columbia University
in NYC instead of the University of Michigan, I am optimistic.
Columbia is less computer-oriented than the University of
Michigan, but Columbia seems better connected to the educational
and academic computer networks. But Michigan for me would have
been a better computer school. Columbia has more of its computer
roots in the past while Michigan has more in the future. There
are a couple of centers opening up and there is, at Columbia, the
State Center for Computing Research. But it's not as obvious as
Michigan how involved Columbia is with computers. I am sort of
pessimistic, because with the age of the computer industry, it
seems to have receded. But it's probably just a cycle.

Ronda: No, it's a fight. You have to figure out how to take it
up. The personal computer caught people by surprise when it
spread so quickly and so substantially. People now have to
evaluate what has happened. I feel the lesson is you can't trust
the business world of large corporations to develop computers and
computer technology. Big corporations can't be coddled by
government, the press, etc. and encouraged to freeze the
development of technology or to go backwards to hand labor as
they have done in many instances. The machine is a machine for
society. It was a mistake to have trusted that the corporate
world would develop it. Instead the corporate world must be
regulated and limited in its efforts to impede the development of
technology. That's what antitrust legislation originally
accomplished. The personal computer was created while there was a
U.S. govt. anti trust suit on against IBM which kept it from
interfering with the development of the personal computer. Once
again there is a need for something independent of the corporate
world, and there is a need for regulations and limitations on the
corporate world so that their narrow self interest is prevented
from interfering with social and technological development.

Michael: You need a new Henry Ford for the Computer world.

Ronda: No, you need another Computers for the People movement.

Michael: No, again.

William: My niece is going to go to Michigan State and she's not
going to get a computer. She's going to get a word processor. You
have a screen, keyboard, and a printer all in one unit. That
suits her. Michael: But it's not compatible with anything other
than another wordprocessor of the same type.

William: There are some that have a floppy disk.

Ronda: But it's sad the computers aren't cheap with a cheaper
printer too.

William: Well it's a letter-quality printer, she's not going to
be doing graphics.

Ronda: I thought John Kemeny once predicted that there would be
computers used in the schools for wondrous things. But now he is
disappointed that that has not happened.

William: One of the problems is software. There aren't enough
software developers to write programs people need. To get them
involved.

Michael: It's not just software developers, it's ideas. People
are not creating new ideas but merely copying old ideas.

Ronda: But I thought that there was the discouragement, when
people were told "People don't need to learn to program." Michael
learned to program and it was a good thing he learned to program.
Instead of saying it's a good thing to learn a little programming
it was said you don't need programming. So it seems that there
has been a lot of pressure to keep people away from utilizing
computers and discouraging them instead.

Michael: I left out that I know a little MS-DOS batch language, a
little C, and a little Forth. I did very little in Assembler.

William: Are you going to take computer classes in collage.

Michael: I don't know if I'll have time.

Ronda: To sum up, it seems it is as if this period is like the
period in France before the French Revolution. Then there was the
basis to have capitalism, but you had the feudal lords and the
King holding society back. You had a Monarchy. There was a need
for the French Revolution to get rid of the Monarchy and the
Aristocracy and the feudal social forms and laws that they kept
in place. They prevented the reforms that were needed to develop
large scale production in France. The problem we have today seems
similar. Big companies are discouraging investment in new
technology like computers because such investment will lower
their rate of profit. There is a need to get rid of this fetter
so that technology can be encouraged and developed. In France, in
1789, it took a revolution to get rid of a similar fetter. What
will it take now?
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Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 12 No 1, Winter 2003/2004
The whole issue or a subscription is available for free via email.
Send a request to jrh@ais.org  or see  http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/
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