owen@euclid.enet.dec.com (Steve Owen) (10/18/90)
Taken without Permission from "Dec Professional". Written by John C. Dvorak.
THE MAN IN THE MACHINE
Marci Peoples Halio, assistant director of the writing program at the
University of Delaware, has discovered a peculiar phenomenon. Freshman taking
her writing course who use Macs produce worse compositions than those who use
IBM PCs.
Based on experience and a computer-aided analysis, she claims that Mac
users make more spelling and punctuation mistakes and write at an eighth-grade
level. The PC users were at a college level.
If this isn't bad enough, the Mac students write on vapid subjects.
They concentrate on issues such as dating and television. The IBMers write
about teen pregnancy, war and stuff like that. My conclusion: The computer
makes the man (or woman, as the case may be).
I thought it might be worthwhile to take the concept a step further and
compare writing on a Mac, a PC clone, and Atari Mega, and Amiga 2000, a VT100
hooked to a VAX and an IBM 3270 hooked to a 3090.
Unable to do this scientifically, I took a different tack. I was
hypnotized and make to believe that whatever computer I used was my favorite.
I was encouraged to express my thoughts about the machine and use it to list
five topics about which I'd like to write.
While the unscientific results don't completely confirm the
unscientific conclusions of Halio, they show a definite pattern and indicated
that "you are what you write on." Here are the results, computer by computer:
MACINTOSH
Thoughts:
This is a neat machine. I love the mouse and feel superior to the poor saps
who use anything else.
Topics:
1. New ice cream flavors.
2. Bruce Willis: actor, singer or Renaissance man.
3. Do those cleaners/waxes advertised on TV really work?
4. Was Rob Lowe unfairly treated after those incriminating video tapes were
released?
5. Where's Brazil, anyway?
PC CLONE
Thoughts:
This is a very functional machine. I like it and feel superior to the poor
saps who use anything else.
Topics:
1. Phenomenology in an age of bleached blondes and the implications of such a
culture and its effects on Eastern Europe.
2. Tissue culture fraud at laboratories
3. Mating habits of native tree frogs.
4. Use of the word 'indeed' in 18th century literature.
5. Is "form versus function" a dead issue in modern architectural theory?
ATARI MEGA
Thoughts:
This machine is a bargain, and I can even make it run Mac software! I feel
superior to people who paid more than I did.
Topics:
1. Atari compared to Mac.
2. Mac software on the Atari.
3. What's wrong with the Mac?
4. Why the Atari is the best deal.
5. The decline of bowling in America
AMIGA 2000
Thoughts:
This machine is fabulous, but nobody wants to talk about it. It's a cover-up.
I love this machine but feel sorry for myself.
Topics:
1. Why the Amiga is never discussed.
2. Fancy video techniques done easily on the Amiga
3. How Commodore is blowing Amiga's marketing.
4. How good is true stereo on the Amiga.
5. New uses for the Amiga.
VT100 hooked to a VAX
Thoughts:
This is a real computer. I like it and feel superior to the poor saps who use
anything else.
Topics:
1. Button collecting
2. I wish I had invented C.
3. How to borrow money.
4. Is the sponge bath making a comeback?
5. Efficiency in rebooting a VAX.
IBM 3270 hooked to a 3090
Thoughts:
This is a real computer. I like it and feel superior to the poor saps who use
anything else.
Topics:
1. VM is the best thing ever!
2. Is RPG-II a victim of bad press?
3. How to make a bureaucracy work.
4. The history of corporate dress codes and their importance.
5. Alternate realities.
When the exercise was over, I looked at the results, went home and
wrote this column - in longhand.
[Please don't take this article as the start of some sort of a Flame war. I
thought it was funny, and thought it might be funny to some of you. -SO]
_____ ///______________________________________________________________________
| /// Only Amiga makes it possible! | Music: Anything but slop 40 |
|\\\/// Macintosh: Marketed well... | Beer: Sam Adams Boston Lager |
| \XX/ OS/2: half an operating system | Major: Mechanical Engineering |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|Steve | owen@euclid.enet.dec.com(Now-Dec)| "Cool your jets man!"-Bart takes |
|Owen | sowen@lynx.northeastern.edu(Jan+)| Heat Transfer and Fluid Dynamics |
-------------------------All normal disclaimers apply--------------------------lth00@ccc.amdahl.com ( 205 Lawrence T Hardiman) (10/23/90)
In article <1990Oct19.055541.1514@math.lsa.umich.edu> hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) writes: >A lot of folks have been paying a lot of attention to Halio's article, even >though the observations she makes were not made in a scientifically controlled >setting... Ms. Halio's paper does indeed say that the observations are not the result of an academic study. The paper is based on an observation made in an academic environment over several years of teaching freshman english. I feel that she may have a real find, not in that people who use Macs do lesser work than those who use an IBM PC, but the finding is that "who chooses to use a Mac". In her paper, she describes a lot of conditions that would lead you to believe that all the students were more or less "equal in all respects". They all came from similar highschool backgrounds; all had similar grades; all had to take freshman english; none had any other distinguishing characteristics. The only externally measurable difference is that the students got to choose the section of freshman english they attended. The only difference in sections of the class was the computer platform on which they were to do the work (IBM PC or a Mac). Therein lies the observation. I believe the conclusion should not be directed at the platform, but at the participants; the conclusion I find is that students of lesser ability choose to use a Mac rather than a computer that requires them to think about how to use the platform as well as what what is to be written. Just my opinion, thank you.