info-mac@uw-beaver (09/28/85)
From: Moderator Richard M. Alderson <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.arpa>
INFO-MAC Digest Saturday, 28 Sep 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 44
Today's Topics:
Social Impacts of Computing: Graduate Study at UC-Irvine
MacFest
Alternate Printers
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Date: 26 Sep 1985 0919-PDT
From: Rob-Kling <Kling%UCI-20B@UCI-ICSA>
Subject: Social Impacts of Computing: Graduate Study at UC-Irvine
This program might be of special interest to those people interested in the
social impacts of microcomputing, desktop computerization, and home
computing. Current reserach projects within this program examine the
social dimensions of these technologies: who uses them in the larger
society, what they are good for, how people and organizations integrate
them into their daily lives.
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CORPS
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Graduate Education in
Computing, Organizations, Policy, and Society
at the University of California, Irvine
This graduate concentration at the University of California, Irvine
provides an opportunity for scholars and students to investigate the social
dimensions of computerization in a setting which supports reflective and
sustained inquiry.
The primary educational opportunities are PhD concentrations in the
Department of Information and Computer Science (ICS) and MS and PhD
concentrations in the Graduate School of Management (GSM). Students in
each concentration can specialize in studying the social dimensions of
computing.
The faculty at Irvine have been active in this area, with many interdisci-
plinary projects, since the early 1970's. The faculty and students in the
CORPS have approached them with methods drawn from the social sciences.
The CORPS concentration focuses upon four related areas of inquiry:
1. Examining the social consequences of different kinds of computerization
on social life in organizations and in the larger society.
2. Examining the social dimensions of the work and organizational worlds
in which computer technologies are developed, marketed, disseminated,
deployed, and sustained.
3. Evaluating the effectiveness of strategies for managing the deployment
and use of computer-based technologies.
4. Evaluating and proposing public policies which facilitate the
development and use of computing in pro-social ways.
Studies of these questions have focussed on complex information systems,
computer-based modelling, decision-support systems, the myriad forms of
office automation, electronic funds transfer systems, expert systems,
instructional computing, personal computers, automated command and control
systems, and computing at home. The questions vary from study to study.
They have included questions about the effectiveness of these technologies,
effective ways to manage them, the social choices that they open or close
off, the kind of social and cultural life that develops around them, their
political consequences, and their social carrying costs.
CORPS studies at Irvine have a distinctive orientation -
(i) in focussing on both public and private sectors,
(ii) in examining computerization in public life as well as within
organizations,
(iii) by examining advanced and common computer-based technologies "in
vivo" in ordinary settings, and
(iv) by employing analytical methods drawn from the social sciences.
Organizational Arrangements and Admissions for CORPS
The CORPS concentration is a special track within the normal graduate
degree programs of ICS and GSM. Admission requirements for this
concentration are the same as for students who apply for a PhD in ICS or an
MS or PhD in GSM. Students with varying backgrounds are encouraged to
apply for the PhD programs if they show strong research promise.
The seven primary faculty in the CORPS concentration hold appointments in
the Department of Information and Computer Science and the Graduate School
of Management. Additional faculty in the School of Social Sciences, and
the program on Social Ecology, have collaborated in research or have taught
key courses for CORPS students. Our research is administered through an
interdisciplinary research institute at UCI which is part of the Graduate
Division, the Public Policy Research Organization.
Students who wish additional information about the CORPS concentration
should write to:
Professor Rob Kling (Kling@uci-icsa)
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, Ca. 92717
714-856-5955 or 856-7548
or to:
Professor Kenneth Kraemer (Kraemer@uci-icsa)
Graduate School of Management
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, Ca. 92717
714-856-5246
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Date: Wed 25 Sep 85 12:40:47-PDT
From: Brian Bishop <BISHOP@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: MacFest
We had a mini-Mac Expo here at USC yesterday (in celebration of our PC
store starting to sell Macs at normal retail prices - no consortium for us,
sigh) and a few details of the event might be of general interest.
Apple was there with the imagewriter II and their new 20 Meg hard drive.
The imagewriter II had me bothered for some time, since it was supposed to
be faster and higher quality than the imagewriter (I) that I and the rest
of the Mac world has. Well, I wasn't impressed. The print quality looked
about the same, if not worse. The case for the thing is made out of white
plastic (or Apple //c ghostly grey plastic, if you prefer the in-house
terminology). All-in-all it looked flimsier than the imagewriter I, as
well as collecting smudges on that white plastic (we all know how clean a
printer stays, huh?). The one thing it did have was a single-sheet
document loader, which seemed to work OK, but it was a hassle to take it
off to use the tractor feed. The sales rep shrugged this off by saying
that "IBM's printer isn't much better." Not what I'd call a resounding
defense. No word on the price.
The new 20 Meg disk is about 2" high and sits under the computer - gee,
suspiciously like the MacBottom (who supposedly they farmed it out to...).
This looks like a winner. It plugs into the disk drive port and has a plug
on the back of the drive for an external 3 1/2" drive, if you have one. I
didn't get a chance to check the drive speed on the external floppy with
this little daisy-chain type set up, though I doubt it slows it down too
much. They also were running the new hierarchal file structure on it.
Using it, you don't need to set up and size (and mount and dismount)
volumes. Also the minifinder (or whatever its true name is) shows the files
in the current folder and displays the alternate folders above the little
window. You click on another folder and its files are then displayed. Very
nice. The price on the drive is ~$1500. Not bad for 20 meg, when a hyper
w/10 is close to that! With discounts, you could have 20 meg for $1k!!!!
They also had a new modem for the entire apple line (//,//e,//c,mac,etc.).
No price on it, it's 300/1200 and about 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". It plugs into a
wall socket like a transformer, then you plug a modular phone cable from it
to your wall phone plug. Not bad.
Levco had their 2 Meg upgrades there, along with a prototype on their
internal 20 meg drive. They seem to be aiming for status a in independent
upgrade manufacturer (i.e. buy their ram, then their hard drive and they
will be sure to work together). I am leery of this, since Apple gets the
final say on your Mac's upgrades etc. BUT....consider this: 1. The rep
assured me that they will take care of their customers if Apple hoses you
on a ROM upgrade (but he also was careful to state many times that they
will not copy Apple's ROMs)
2. The rep claimed that they will have a DMA (Direct Memeory Access) option
on their board, although it wasn't on the one I saw. Speed was at least
close to the Hyper on the one I saw (Rep said faster, but I haven't used a
Hyper enough to be sure).
3. The drive is still in the development stages, but it will use Apple's
hierarchal file system, like apple's drive, and will not require anf volume
resizing, etc. like hyper does. The price will likely be in the $1k+ range
(apple's drive may affect that).
Finally, an amusing note: they had two of their boards sitting out for
inspection (nothing is soldered on them, by the way, they only socket you
68k). I noticed that they have sockets for about 4 proms of their own.
These are probably what they use to make the memory contiguous to the Mac.
Two were empty, but two were labelled Harpo and Gummo (the names of the
proms????).
Brian
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Date: Tue 24 Sep 85 14:17:21-PDT
From: Dick <MEAD@USC-ECLB.ARPA>
Subject: Alternate Printers
Has anyone come up with a way to customize the printer driver for the Mac
so one can use other than the Imagewriter. In specific, I am looking to
substitute one of: Star Radix-15, Okidata 83a (dot matrix) and for letter
quality a NEC5520 (Diablo 1620). The biggest win would be the Star, as it
is the most versatile.
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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