phipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (04/04/84)
A recent follow-up of mine contained the following:
The liberal arts people just want to write their papers
and maintain modest data files, I suspect. A Z-80 can be used for that,
so an IBM PC should suffice. Maybe someone can even write a humane
word-processor or editor for them, or scrounge some Macintoshes.
I was attempting to acknowledge my ignorance of the computing needs
of the liberal arts community, while offering a guess (indicated by "I suspect")
that these needs were less than those of the traditionally computer-oriented
academic disciplines. The guess was a gut-level feeling, with no data
to back that up. Victor Lee of St. Olaf's College (a liberal arts college)
claims that the opposite is the case.
No offense to liberal arts people was intended by my uninformed guessing.
I still believe that application of presently available micros
to various fields of study, including liberal arts, in the present time
is preferable to doing nothing until someone's favorite dream machine
is available at a dream price. There are certainly some applications
in the liberal arts disciplines for which some micros are inadequate,
just as there are problems for which they are inadequate in the
physical sciences. Big deal. I just can't believe that they can't
be of significant assistance on *some* projects,
contrary to what has been stated or implied elsewhere.
You really need a UNIX-based computer, as suggested by one respondent ?
Fine. Fortune (as an arbitrary example :-) sells UNIX-based computers
[Do my detractors really believe that my goal is to make the world safe
for IBM PCs ? Check out my site name. Sorry, I don't know how to make
this point without risking sounding like a commercial for my employer].
People actually working in the liberal arts field are hereby encouraged
to set us traditional computerists straight on your needs.
[note: the opinions expressed herein are those of a compiler writer
who is aggravated by those who seem to want students to continue
to struggle along as they always have, without the assistance
of *any* computers that could lift some burdens from their backs.
My opinions may not be consistent with those of my employer.]
-- Clay Phipps
--
{cbosgd decvax!decwrl!amd70 harpo hplabs!hpda ihnp4 sri-unix ucbvax!amd70}
!fortune!phipps