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The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1
326 pages Creative Computing Press (1976) English 0916688011 978-0916688011 Product 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches Shipping 1.9 pounds
326 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1976
3 people want to read
About the author
David H. Ahl
21 booksLibrary of Congress Authorities: David H. Ahl
Books sometimes say only "David Ahl"
Books sometimes say only "David Ahl"
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 20, 2021
Fascinating…
In its early days, Creative Computing was very focused on computing in education—probably because that’s where the computers were. So a lot of these articles from 1975 are about how to use computers in education for helping teachers grade, for providing computer-assisted instruction, and so on.
It also highlights the problems with using computers as assistants in teaching: they only know what we know, and they tend to amplify our own ignorance. For example, the Club of Rome had just released one of the perennial “we’re all going to die from limited resources” surveys that never seem to die themselves. So one of the articles talks about an “energy simulation model” in which “the user attempts to balance the demand for energy with available supplies by changing policies, standards and energy use habits.”
The problem is that such a program can only take into account what it’s been programmed to take into account; and so it’s focused on central command-and-control economies by its nature, which tend to depress innovation.
But this Kirkian getting under the system turned out to be exactly what we needed. It’s difficult to handle this sort of thing in a computer simulation, especially when the people hiring the programmers tend toward wanting to prove centralized economies as necessary.
Similarly, climate change was an issue:
Privacy was another big theme during this year, most of it in response to the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, with the wider issue of whether increased computerized record-keeping inhibits risk-taking.
The history of computing that this has become over the decades is also fascinating. An eighth-grade student wrote about their experience at Xerox PARC using Smalltalk in 1973. As part of their article, they included pictures of the system they used. It looks almost but not quite exactly unlike the initial Macintosh interface.
While most of the code is in BASIC, many of the articles are about other programming languages and the deficiencies of BASIC, but also the complexity to humans of the alternative languages. There is, interestingly, little or nothing about the complexity to computers of the alternatives. It wasn’t so much the ease-of-use of BASIC that made it the lingua franca of home computers a few years later. It was the ease of including BASIC on slow, low-memory personal computers. What makes this interesting to me is that many of the writers did know that such personal computers were on the way, but it didn’t occur to them to connect the dots and hypothesize what footprint a personal computer language would need to have.
Another article provided a lot of information about the available kits.
Pong-era Atari is profiled, and there’s even an article about Pong strategy, “Playing PONG to Win”.
What appears to be a pre Tunnels & Trolls Flying Buffalo is also profiled, focused on their play-by-mail games.
Even more fascinating to me was an article on a bunch of CalTech students who won 20% of the prizes in a McDonalds contest. “Enter as many times as you like”, so they did. It is, of course one of the many strange CalTech stories taken nearly verbatim for the wonderful movie Real Genius.
In its early days, Creative Computing was very focused on computing in education—probably because that’s where the computers were. So a lot of these articles from 1975 are about how to use computers in education for helping teachers grade, for providing computer-assisted instruction, and so on.
It also highlights the problems with using computers as assistants in teaching: they only know what we know, and they tend to amplify our own ignorance. For example, the Club of Rome had just released one of the perennial “we’re all going to die from limited resources” surveys that never seem to die themselves. So one of the articles talks about an “energy simulation model” in which “the user attempts to balance the demand for energy with available supplies by changing policies, standards and energy use habits.”
Factors which can be manipulated include: production level of American industries, factories and utilities; pollution standards that plants must meet; efficiency of the automobile as a means of transportation; condition and availability of mass transportation; and use of energy for heating and lighting. The user adjusts energy consumption in each of these areas in an attempt to keep demand and supply in balance.
The problem is that such a program can only take into account what it’s been programmed to take into account; and so it’s focused on central command-and-control economies by its nature, which tend to depress innovation.
…the most troublesome [users] are junior and senior high school boys who determine how the program operates and then use this knowledge to introduce a “bug” into the system; debugging is necessary about once every week, according to Symposia staff members.
But this Kirkian getting under the system turned out to be exactly what we needed. It’s difficult to handle this sort of thing in a computer simulation, especially when the people hiring the programmers tend toward wanting to prove centralized economies as necessary.
“It’s a simplistic kind of conclusion—you have problems, and you solve them by stopping all sources of change.”
Similarly, climate change was an issue:
Climate By Computer
Computer simulations of complex systems like the atmosphere is a tricky business, but two IBM scientists are trying to use computers to answer at least one pressing question: Is dust pollution contributing to the global cooling trends?
Privacy was another big theme during this year, most of it in response to the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, with the wider issue of whether increased computerized record-keeping inhibits risk-taking.
If the time ever comes when the misuse of computerized record-keeping leads man to fear being curious, daring, and willing to deviate from the norm in order to experiment, it would not be a case of the machine triumphing over man, as some people fear. It would be a case of man becoming the machine.
The history of computing that this has become over the decades is also fascinating. An eighth-grade student wrote about their experience at Xerox PARC using Smalltalk in 1973. As part of their article, they included pictures of the system they used. It looks almost but not quite exactly unlike the initial Macintosh interface.
While most of the code is in BASIC, many of the articles are about other programming languages and the deficiencies of BASIC, but also the complexity to humans of the alternative languages. There is, interestingly, little or nothing about the complexity to computers of the alternatives. It wasn’t so much the ease-of-use of BASIC that made it the lingua franca of home computers a few years later. It was the ease of including BASIC on slow, low-memory personal computers. What makes this interesting to me is that many of the writers did know that such personal computers were on the way, but it didn’t occur to them to connect the dots and hypothesize what footprint a personal computer language would need to have.
Another article provided a lot of information about the available kits.
The SCELBI-8H, first offered in late 1973, is available in a variety of ways: as an assembled and tested computer with a 4K memory, at $1239, or in kit form for $1149; as a set of five printed-circuit cards with a 1K memory, $498; individual cards, from $55 to $195; “unpopulated” cards (without components), a set of five for $109; and various other combinations. Several interface cards are available, for making use of an oscilloscope readout, audio cassette-tape memory, or Teletype. Two dozen programs are available, including keyboard-to-CRT display, assembler, Teletype memory dump, magnetic-tape bootstrap loader, etc.
The July 1974 Radio-Electronics described the Mark-8, also built around the Intel 8008 microprocessor, and also programed in the Intel assembly language. A minimum Mark-8, with 256 8-bit words, is about $300. The construction manual for the Mark-8, which also gives information on obtaining a set of PC boards, is $5.00 from Radio-Electronics.
The Altair 8800 (Popular Electronics, Jan and Feb. 1975) is based on the Intel 8080 chip, faster and with more instructions than the 8008, and is sold by MITS for $542 with 256 words of memory; with 1K words, $701 in kit form, or $938 assembled.
Pong-era Atari is profiled, and there’s even an article about Pong strategy, “Playing PONG to Win”.
What appears to be a pre Tunnels & Trolls Flying Buffalo is also profiled, focused on their play-by-mail games.
Even more fascinating to me was an article on a bunch of CalTech students who won 20% of the prizes in a McDonalds contest. “Enter as many times as you like”, so they did. It is, of course one of the many strange CalTech stories taken nearly verbatim for the wonderful movie Real Genius.
Reality’s an untamed beast
That’s difficult to master,
But models are quite docile
And give you answers faster.
So build yourself a model
To glorify your name.
Then get yourself a task force
And learn to play the game.
—J.C.L. Guest, “Decison-Making”
March 11, 2024
Creative Computing was an early computer magazine that focused on computers in education. Most of the articles are dates were not that interesting when originally published. The cartoons, puzzles, and code (Basic) were worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews