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A Haul

D

docred

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2008
Messages
106
Location
Saskatchewan, Canada
Well, unfortunately this one doesn't have a very high ratio of vintage parts, but I thought people might still find it interesting :)
I hornswaggled my brother and his truck into pulling a cattle trailer (not a big trailer, just a smaller one that my friend owns) to a small town outside the city to pick up several years of accumulated PCs and peripherals from a fellow who is retiring/moving. I parked the trailer at my friends farm, and I've started taking carloads in to the city. The vast majority of it is going to a charity/volunteer program here called Computers for Kids (computers fixed up for low income or disadvantaged households with kids), but I'm sorting through it for things they won't want that I and Kaypro+ may want. If there is anyone around who needs some 386-PII era parts, just let me know though, we could part out some things I'm sure. There are a couple dozen boxes of stuff which may contain surprises yet.
Anyway, the content was not impressive from a vintage standpoint, but I love telling people 'Saturday? Oh, Saturday I was out in -35c weather loading a cattle trailer full of computer stuff'....for some reason it makes me laugh, and I figured the people gathered here would appreciate and understand the crazy silliness of it much more than my wife, who just stared at me blankly, then threatened divorce if the trailer actually ever made its way to our house :)
 
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Yeah, I do that Computers for Kids thing too, along with a couple of other places that I think are specific to Ontario.

I don't know about out there, but, here, they are getting pretty damn picky lately. I got some very nice HP P4s from MikeS and they won't take them because they are only 1.6GHz and now I'm trying to get some faster S478 processors so they will do me the honour of letting me give them to them.

The other places are getting just as bad.

I've fixed up, bought parts for and given away, easily, over a hundred computers to these outfits over the last couple of years, but, in the new year, I'm going to have to re-think my time management policy.

I hope you do better gifting your still useful computers away because it's for a good cause, but, when they start dictating minimum standards for gifts, it gets a little annoying.
 
We're fortunate here yet, the group running the CFK will still even raid 486s for useful cards to get machines running - I think they're still of the philosophy that even a PII in front of a child is better than nothing, and I agree totally with that. Haven't had any minimums thrown at me yet luckily:)
Sasktel here has a 'Computers for Schools' program, run by Sasktel employees and retired employees as well, they did get very picky about what they would take unfortunately. I think they're in a bit of a different situation though, supplying to schools.
Heck, my 3 year old plays regularly with the Vic-20 I have set up, he likes typing away or 'playing' a game...and he's learned keys on the keyboard from it :) I think a person can always find a value if you want to.
Unbelievable that they wouldn't take P4s because they're only 1.6 GHZ? Good lord, I've got a half dozen machines around here used for various purposes that aren't even close to that, and...well, why am I still typing? You guys all know what I mean :)
 
Yeah, in Saskatoon's CFK, the only real standard is that they won't take older Mac stuff. I asked them about it, and they say it's just not common enough, and not in line with their program. and that's a perfectly good reason.

But wow, not accepting a 1.6Ghz machine? That's ridiculous.
 
Unfortunately computers in schools need to fit into the system. That system is driven (read pushed) by the business of educational software which requires lots of bling to catch the attention of busy and academically (computer wise) stunted teachers. There is no way to get around that in this society - at least not until "educational software" gets out of the gaming stage.

Because I've had a kid go through school, I've had a number of experiences with computers in the classroom and I've given up in disgust. Teachers (yes almost all of them) are just not ready to teach this subject, and there is no proper curriculum put together by academics who don't have any commercial ties or interests - such as the language and math curriculum. I've spent hours at the school and basically I've wasted my time there because teachers don't care about computers other than as an appliance for social conformity. From reading on the net, and speaking with other parents, this is a common experience for someone with a passion for computers when they encounter the school system.

Personally I'd say a 386 (or even an XT) would beat a pIII anytime for educational purposes. It amazes me how the teaching profession hasn't noticed that all the uber nerds of today, and to whom they look up, all started on Commodore 64s or similar. Really, that ought to be a wakeup call for anyone who wants to understand the educational process. I'm tired of seing kids come home with a fancy coloured print of some disney figure that they've created by clicking on the print button so they can say they're "learning computers" and impress mommy with how advanced their school is.

Good luck with gifting, but unless you're also prepard to be the teacher, I'm not sure about it's usefulness. /rant :)

PS: It sounds like your're having lots of fun though. Wish I was there!
 
slow computers in education (straying from original topic)

slow computers in education (straying from original topic)

Personally I'd say a 386 (or even an XT) would beat a pIII anytime for educational purposes.
Click to expand...

Sorry to pick up this thread tangent, but I have to vocalize my agreement.

I study university level CS education. As far as teaching programming goes, I have a feeling that tutorial software may be doing more harm than good (there's a bit of supporting research). Having faster PCs just means that the software can do more thinking for the student. It's like teaching someone to drive by giving them a chauffeur, then a better chauffeur, and then an even better one ("Did you pay attention? Ok, now you're ready for your examination."). I'm betting my Ph.D. thesis on the hope that by increasing the delay in programming, students will learn better: more of the programming and debugging will take place in their minds. I had trouble determining how to slow down the computer without actually going out and buying a bunch of 8088s or C64s or a PDP-11 with a card reader, but I settled on a simple and revolutionary solution (no, it's reactionary): the students will do some program writing and debugging on paper. It's not a new idea by any means, but I'm going to be the first to study it formally in a comparative experiment, starting next semester.

It was my interest in retro/vintage computing that led me to this idea.
 
JeffMeunier said:
It's like teaching someone to drive by giving them a chauffeur, then a better chauffeur, and then an even better one ("Did you pay attention? Ok, now you're ready for your examination.").
Click to expand...

I like that- a lot!
Nicely put.
 
I've got to agree with you Jeff. I think thats part of the reason I like vintage computing so much - because as great as automation and encapsulation and 'black boxing' everything is, getting under the hood and doing things more manually is how you really learn and retain. I started a CS degree several years ago, and have grand plans to finally continue and finish in the coming year or two (I said that last year, lol) and looking at the curriculum at the couple places I'm thinking about, Java for example is the order of the day. I'm not saying Java isn't good....tons of functions, readable, cross platform, etc. I also find it clunky and a little bloated. In my rather naive opinion, at least one assembly language class should be required for CS. Your idea of pen-and-paper work is brilliant as well though.
I learned to program in basic and assembly initially on the old commodore and apple systems, and when you understand assembly, you understand your hardware and your machine very intimately. To my mind, everyone scoffs at the old procedure based methods, the bare metal programming, but they tend to forget that object oriented cross platform packages, when it comes down to it, are still made up of those basic instructions the CPU deals with, there isn't really any getting around that until they have radically changed the way we create computing equipment. I still enjoy firing up an old system and writing code at that level (even though I'm not that good at it). That being said, I'm not knocking higher level languages and methods, not at all, as I use them also. Just....well, I guess this is a bit of my own off topic rant in my own thread, lol.
 
JeffMeunier said:
... Having faster PCs just means that the software can do more thinking for the student. It's like teaching someone to drive by giving them a chauffeur, then a better chauffeur, and then an even better one ("Did you pay attention? Ok, now you're ready for your examination.").
Click to expand...

The speed of the computer doesn't make the software do any more thinking for the student -but- a faster processor does enable the ability to run more complex and powerful software. While the idea of manually writing programs on paper has merit, I agree that using a lower level programming language like assembler is the real key. The analogy of the chauffeur breaks down when compared with a faster machine, a better analogy there might be learning to drive in a succession of faster cars. The chauffeur analogy equates very nicely however, to having a succession of higher level programming languages that do more and more of the actual coding resulting in the programmer needing only to provide high level concepts while the software provides the detail.
 
I Also Agree with all said here, The Anaconda Public School was using those EDUQuest's 486DX2's thay were built 1994 thay used them for about ten years file date stamps say 2002,2003 then in 2002 when the dell's 1.7 take over! And as far a I know the main part of school is still using those dell 1.7's

So a 486 DX2 served a public school for 10 years and as far as I think they could go for 10 more in the middle and ele. schools. The highschoolers might need something with more guts!
 
strollin said:
The speed of the computer doesn't make the software do any more thinking for the student -but- a faster processor does enable the ability to run more complex and powerful software.
Click to expand...

Actually, a faster processor lets you run current games.

VERY few people need the firepower packed into the "latest and greatest" boxes to do anything other than run media intensive games.

The computer "minimum system" has ALWAYS been driven by the gaming sector.

Business applications will run very nicely on systems from several processors ago and, while some scientific applications benefit from faster processes, the VAST majority of computer users don't do anything even remotely requiring a quad core processor.
 
[teaching programming using pen and paper]

> using a lower level programming language like assembler is the real key

It's a key. Assembler helps you understand the architecture, but it doesn't help you with things like functional/procedural abstraction, a strict type system, or a burdensome HLL syntax (I'm thinking semicolons and braces here). It turns out that students don't learn programming any better by changing the order of the languages you teach them (assembler first, Java first, Scheme first, it's all the same).

I don't intend to revolutionize programming or CS education, but perhaps we can find a way to make a better tutoring system. We do have virtually unbounded computing horsepower available, so why can't our students learn computing better now than they did 15 years ago? From the research it looks like fast computers are one of the culprits. Instant gratification does not mesh well with teaching novices how to program. We now have terms like shotgun debugging that we didn't have 15 years ago.

Perhaps in the process students will learn an appreciation for the slowest and oldest computer of all, the human brain. Then when they want their kids to learn programming they'll stay away from the top-end machines in order to keep the kids focused.

Again, sorry for the tangent. It's nice to find moral support in a place as unlikely as this. (but not so unlikely, really)
 
Jeff, you're in the best place to get this kind of moral support. I don't know what else to say other than a big HOOAH to the idea of getting kids to program for older machines and make them do stuff.

I'm currently teaching myself 68000 assembly so I can program for the Atari ST and Sega Genesis (which is a 68K computer sans keyboard, but there is a mouse for it). Why? SO I can network it and 'black box' a network adapter for it. Play more intense games and make it productive as well.

You get a big HOOAH from me and probably a bunch of others here.

Nathan
 
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