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I have been reading the editorial of this magazine from 1981.[^]. In case the link to the page only workes on my computer: It's on page 6.
The editor had an idea how to make a ton of money and even believed that his idea could later run at fantastic speeds, like 9600 bps. If we only had something like that...
Edit: Look on page 106 how to professionally update Apple DOS! 
Edit^2: On page 172 we have a program for relativistic space travel. In BASIC.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
modified 19-Jul-18 4:01am.
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I once read a series of science fiction stories (cannot remember the titles or author), and every time the team needed to travel to a new planet or galaxy, they calculated their course(s) using slide rules.
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Did they have to shovel Uranium into the furnaces? I Think they had that in the old Flah Gordon movies.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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In Robert Heinlein's Space Cadet, they used books of binary tables in order to convert data for input into the astrogation computer. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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And in Dune they had no computers at all.
Quote: Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind
I think they hade some robot revolts along the way.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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The 'heroes' all came from a planet with very high gravity, so they all had reasonably superhuman strength in most places.
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Amused: I like your reference.
Nit-pickingly: though we also have Sphynxians from Honor Harrington series.
GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Yeah, Heinlein was even very specific about his sliderules being made of bamboo. (Sun Hemi?)
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 I still have one.
Mark
Just another cog in the wheel
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E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman Series is what I immediately thought of.
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Could be, but it's nearly 40 years since I read them, and that is about all I can recall.
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I think I was on that crew. Did we make it there and back?
I still have a couple of slide rules here and know how to use them I never used a calculator until I was in Grad School. Never owned one until I left school and got a job.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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In Heinlien's 1952 story "The Rolling Stones" a family buys a used space ship and travels around the solar system. Dad makes each of the kids calculate their burns and courses with slide rules, then compares the results. It takes them days each time.
The Rolling Stones (novel) - Wikipedia[^]
The tribbles connection is fun.
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No batteries needed; we are in space after all.
Does the slide rule get shorter once you approach the speed of light?
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then".
― Blaise Pascal
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Had a quick flick through, I really miss the "new frontier" excitement of it all displayed in the magazine. They're literally debating whether machines should be used to teach the "regular curriculum" or Comp. Sci. principles - as if it's an either/or choice. Also, pages of hardware, listings and the remarkable question "Visual Basic too slow?" with the remarkable answer "learn Assembly language!" (pp119/pp120 - depending whether you believe the PDF or the print).
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That was before everyone was preaching that compilers are better than the average assembly programmer and also before processors that were not meant to be programmed in assembly anymore. Over in Q&A you can see what you get when teachers destroy all confidence students may have before they even had a chance to try.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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CodeWraith wrote: Over in Q&A you can see what you get when teachers destroy all confidence students may have before they even had a chance to try.
I don't think that's whats happening, the problem seems to be the kids* aren't interested in how programming/machines work in general. What they want to do is cobble together an app as quickly as possible from a set of readily downloadable parts, preferable with a name related to caffine. It looks like old school hacking ( hacker - sense 1) but without the desire to know how any of it hangs together / works. They then leave university with huge amounts of confidence, but not the ability to match, because they've managed to tack together a few small lego-brick style systems. The immediate reaction also seems to be to seek help, rather than to try and figure out the problem individually first - and then we end up with the "send codez plz" requests.
Obviously that's a mahoooooooosive and sweeping generalisation on my part, but it does seem to be the trend, and not a new one. I remember experienced hands when I graduated saying similar things about my cohort when we entered the jobs market. Perhaps it's because we've been deskilling the task of programming and the "hard" knowledge has become less necessary until you hit actual problems?
* anyone under, say, 30. Mutters under own breath. Exhorts people to get of my lawn. Uses words like exhorts.
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I always feel a little sorry for them. At every corner they are being told that nobody uses this oldschool stuff anymore. Very much of that is fueled by an industry that only wants to sell some more stuff. Trust the marketing. They will happily tell you what you need to know.
Don't you think that they would learn a little more by building a small 8 bit computer and then programming a simple BIOS than by learning yet some more JavaScript? When nobody teaches them the basics, how are they supposed to undestand what they are doing on their own?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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I remeber the Computer Shopper magazine, not sure if it was just local, but they had all the computer hardware that was available listed. I used to drool ove it!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Wow, had I read it back in 1981, I would have still laughed at this article. This guy was out of touch even back then.
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Yeah. Let's bring our boxes online and send each other mails. Later we can perhaps even reach 9600 bps. Our computers back then had bit banged software controlled serial communication at 300 bps. Later we optimized it up to 2400 bps in software and 4800 bps if we raised the CPU's clock frequency. 9600 bps does not sound totally out of the question.
As for the modem - we tried, but our contraption did not work. At least our poor parents honestly could not explain what happened and their innocence was absolutely plausible.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Yeah, modems definitely sucked back then...I still remember the acoustically coupled ones where you actually had to put the phone's headset into a rubber cup-like receptacle.
That said, the direction of e-mail was fairly obvious even back then. They started standardizing e-mail headers as far back as the early 70's (RFC 561). Arpanet had been kicking around for a while, when CSNET debuted in 1981...the year this guy wrote the article. I remember actually sending e-mails over CSNET as early as 1982.
So, a small amount of reading, even back then, should have exposed this as an idea who's time had already passed.
Though, starting in 1983, that didn't stop products like MCI Mail from making money on a slight variation of the idea...for quite a while. Heck, over its 20 year lifetime, that product alone made a fair amount of money. If you add in similar products, collectively they probably did make a billion
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BY 1981 I was using a home built IBM clone and running Fidonet at 2400 baud, leter went up to 96000 baud a few years later..
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Really? The IBM PC was first sold in September 1981 and you already had a built a clone? Was it perhaps a CP/M machine instead and the PC came later?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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