WEBVTT 00:00:14.013 --> 00:00:15.281 Hello. 00:00:15.281 --> 00:00:18.150 Welcome to our friendly computer. 00:00:18.150 --> 00:00:23.256 This is Ana and joined by Camila Galaz. 00:00:23.289 --> 00:00:24.890 How are you doing? 00:00:24.890 --> 00:00:26.292 You asking me? You're asking the. 00:00:26.292 --> 00:00:29.495 I'm asking you. How am I doing? I'm good. 00:00:29.562 --> 00:00:31.196 I'm good. 00:00:31.797 --> 00:00:32.932 What have you been up to? 00:00:32.932 --> 00:00:35.435 How's your week been so far? It's been good. 00:00:35.435 --> 00:00:42.075 I actually there were a couple of things, like tech history stuff I did that I thought we could chat about. 00:00:42.241 --> 00:00:43.609 Yeah. 00:00:43.609 --> 00:00:46.713 You went to the Museum of Failure? 00:00:46.945 --> 00:00:48.847 Yeah, I went to this place. 00:00:48.847 --> 00:00:51.317 It's called the Museum of Failure in Brooklyn. 00:00:51.317 --> 00:00:52.484 I love that name. 00:00:52.484 --> 00:00:58.725 I went because they have a minotaur, and I love I love my minutos. 00:00:58.725 --> 00:01:00.493 And I've actually still never seen one. 00:01:00.493 --> 00:01:03.295 No, I have definitely had a lot of them in person. 00:01:03.295 --> 00:01:08.034 Yeah, I think we've seen they were at the computer history museums, right? 00:01:08.067 --> 00:01:09.835 Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true. 00:01:09.835 --> 00:01:11.304 Did they? Yeah, they did. 00:01:11.304 --> 00:01:12.471 They did. They did. 00:01:12.471 --> 00:01:16.975 I think I remember it, but I've never seen one like, work. 00:01:16.975 --> 00:01:19.846 Like working. Like, wasn't working. 00:01:19.846 --> 00:01:22.715 You saw the Eduardo Cortes was. Yeah. 00:01:22.715 --> 00:01:26.286 And they were playing very cool animations on it. 00:01:26.352 --> 00:01:28.555 But there was a minute till in the museum a failure. 00:01:28.555 --> 00:01:32.058 Does that mean that they that they claimed that it. 00:01:32.091 --> 00:01:35.427 Yeah. Failed. Yeah. This was my issue. 00:01:35.528 --> 00:01:38.465 Oh yeah. 00:01:38.465 --> 00:01:43.536 I guess this, this, this museum of failure is they gave me a ticket to go. 00:01:43.602 --> 00:01:45.605 I'm very grateful. It. 00:01:45.605 --> 00:01:47.040 It was cool. 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.075 They have a lot of old tech stuff. 00:01:49.075 --> 00:01:51.444 Some stuff I hadn't seen. 00:01:51.444 --> 00:01:56.950 They had quite a few, like weird mobile phones and. 00:01:57.016 --> 00:01:57.584 Yeah. 00:01:57.584 --> 00:02:00.620 Wait, I want to know what mobile phones they were using. 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:10.663 They had that one that was like an ESPN mobile phone where it was does that it was like a flip phone, but it was designed to be to like, watch sports on. 00:02:10.763 --> 00:02:13.032 And I had one that was like a taco fart. 00:02:13.032 --> 00:02:14.867 That's what they called it. 00:02:13.032 --> 00:02:14.867 I can't remember. 00:02:14.867 --> 00:02:21.007 It's like, I think you could play games on it, maybe, but then you had to, like, hold it weirdly against your ear. 00:02:21.074 --> 00:02:21.274 Yeah. 00:02:21.274 --> 00:02:23.909 They had also, like different media format stuff. 00:02:23.909 --> 00:02:27.847 So like Sony mini tests and laser discs and things. 00:02:27.947 --> 00:02:29.282 Mm hmm. 00:02:29.282 --> 00:02:40.393 Yeah, I guess the idea is that it's like all these, like, objects that failed, but I wasn't really sure about what failure meant. 00:02:40.627 --> 00:02:41.760 Like the criteria. 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:42.395 Yeah. 00:02:42.395 --> 00:02:53.673 Because also, you know, like, we look at, I guess, what you would call tech failures, but, but it's not it's, it's just because they commercially fail does mean that they socially failed. 00:02:53.673 --> 00:02:54.340 It doesn't. 00:02:54.340 --> 00:02:54.606 Yeah. 00:02:54.606 --> 00:02:57.977 Or even inspire it into the public. Yeah. 00:02:58.010 --> 00:03:00.646 Or even that we that it doesn't exist anymore. 00:03:00.646 --> 00:03:03.316 It doesn't mean it was a failure. Yeah. 00:03:03.316 --> 00:03:16.128 So the minotaur one, it was interesting because they had like this big list, they have these little like funny pun, pun based descriptions of all the objects. 00:03:16.229 --> 00:03:24.002 And for the Minotaur one, it was a list of like all the things you could do on the Minotaur, like banking and buying tickets. 00:03:24.069 --> 00:03:28.640 But then after each one they would have like in brackets search for porn. 00:03:28.741 --> 00:03:32.912 So it was like a joke that people were using. 00:03:32.912 --> 00:03:43.088 But like we did a few episodes on the Minotaur and like a specific one on Minotaur Rose Like the sexy side of Minotaur, which was a really big part of the network, but it just felt like it. 00:03:43.088 --> 00:03:45.024 I don't know. It diminished it a little bit. 00:03:45.024 --> 00:03:55.534 And that a quote from a thing said As the Internet became the norm in the rest of the world, France clung to its antiquated technology until they finally unplugged the Minotaur in 2012. 00:03:55.534 --> 00:04:01.241 It has been argued that the Minotaur delayed France's transition to the Internet by a decade. But. 00:04:01.306 --> 00:04:16.656 But does that mean that it was the finding that was a success as Yeah, and I think that's a failure of the Internet at that time so that I couldn't offer anything extra that the Intel wasn't already offering. 00:04:16.656 --> 00:04:18.391 So it was nice to see it. 00:04:18.391 --> 00:04:21.394 But I also felt sad that it was there. 00:04:21.461 --> 00:04:29.901 There was also there a mechanical calculator, which we talked about last episode with the like silicon chip revolution destroying the industry. 00:04:29.901 --> 00:04:43.850 And this was I still I also don't know if this is a failure because it was a failure to like, see that this new chip was going to like the microchip was going to destroy the industry and they didn't innovate, I guess. 00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:48.821 But I don't know that like the mechanical calculator was incredibly successful. 00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:51.089 Things can't last forever. 00:04:51.089 --> 00:04:52.391 Yeah, yeah. 00:04:52.391 --> 00:04:55.261 Imagine how many calculations and things that it like. 00:04:55.261 --> 00:05:00.233 How much the mechanical calculator would have invented in directly like especially during the industrial revolution. 00:05:00.233 --> 00:05:03.935 How often time, how often it was used during that era. 00:05:04.002 --> 00:05:11.310 What kind of like things it allowed people to produce were extremely successful. 00:05:11.343 --> 00:05:12.678 Right. Yeah. 00:05:12.678 --> 00:05:16.281 Like without the mechanical calculator, we probably wouldn't have trains. 00:05:16.281 --> 00:05:25.625 Without the mechanical calculator, we wouldn't have the electronic pocket calculator. Exactly. 00:05:25.692 --> 00:05:26.492 So, yeah, I don't know. 00:05:26.492 --> 00:05:28.461 It's fun to go. 00:05:28.461 --> 00:05:39.072 I guess it's it's like a pop exhibition and I suppose we approach things with a little bit more nuance. 00:05:39.137 --> 00:05:54.519 I guess maybe it's, it's the type of museum that will like, want to, like, trigger a conversation about what exactly failure means and why we perceive these things to be failures, even though to some people they're not. 00:05:54.586 --> 00:05:58.990 I can imagine it's like more of like a museum of of semantics, right. 00:05:58.990 --> 00:06:06.999 Or like how you define certain words rather than like the objective reality of them. 00:06:07.065 --> 00:06:07.500 Right? 00:06:07.500 --> 00:06:12.572 I mean, things that are commercially successful can also be failures on a bunch of levels. 00:06:12.805 --> 00:06:17.442 Yeah, and I guess the conversation is like, how do you define success and failure? 00:06:17.442 --> 00:06:27.252 And I don't know if the exhibition answered that question, but I think the the goal of the exhibition is to maybe spark the conversation. 00:06:27.319 --> 00:06:32.391 And there was a wall at the end of like Post-it note, if you like, put up Post-it notes on this wall. 00:06:32.391 --> 00:06:35.327 And it was like, What is your personal failure? 00:06:35.327 --> 00:06:38.663 And a lot of people were saying things that weren't personal values. 00:06:38.764 --> 00:06:46.639 It's like the mayor or like, I don't know, I just like political things. 00:06:46.738 --> 00:06:52.978 Someone did post one on the wall that said their personal failure was they failed at starting a podcast. 00:06:53.045 --> 00:06:54.680 Oh, that wasn't me. 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:56.649 I didn't I didn't say that. 00:06:56.649 --> 00:07:01.687 But yeah, so it's it's called the Museum of Failure. 00:07:01.687 --> 00:07:04.923 It's open until June 18th in Brooklyn at Industry City. 00:07:04.923 --> 00:07:06.291 They also have an app. 00:07:06.291 --> 00:07:16.536 I think it's like M0 x, I think the X is for failure and it has I think I don't I didn't download it because it was too big. 00:07:16.802 --> 00:07:19.172 My phone didn't have enough space. 00:07:19.172 --> 00:07:22.141 That's my first no failure. 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:29.482 But I think it has like a list of all of the objects that they have so interested in seeing some stuff. 00:07:29.581 --> 00:07:33.218 And then I also went and saw of the BlackBerry movie. 00:07:33.286 --> 00:07:36.988 Oh, yeah, it no, it's it's good. 00:07:36.988 --> 00:07:39.225 It's fun. Yeah. 00:07:39.225 --> 00:07:41.293 I mean, it's very like yeah, yeah. 00:07:41.293 --> 00:08:08.187 Alley I guess it's about the rise of the BlackBerry phone or I guess more specifically, the company that sort of started it research in Motion and then kind of having the idea for it and then not really knowing like how to navigate the business world and this other guy coming in who's a bit of like like a nasty business guy. 00:08:08.221 --> 00:08:08.788 Yeah. 00:08:08.788 --> 00:08:31.810 Like he his sort of out for his own gain, knows how to navigate stuff and kind of it's this friction between the ideals of the original guys and the sort of want for money and success and like, do those things mesh or not. 00:08:31.911 --> 00:08:34.346 And yeah, I mean it was fun. 00:08:34.346 --> 00:08:38.951 It there were a lot of wigs and I was wearing wigs. 00:08:39.018 --> 00:08:40.352 It was distracting. 00:08:40.352 --> 00:08:43.855 I want to look up the original like the people that they're portraying. 00:08:43.923 --> 00:08:44.389 Yeah. 00:08:44.389 --> 00:08:53.599 If the to see if it is I mean they were wearing wigs I or you never know it was like what from the nineties. 00:08:53.765 --> 00:08:56.568 Nineties. Yeah. 00:08:56.568 --> 00:09:02.674 Could be that would make a lot of sense because they were very intense of the Yeah yeah yeah. 00:09:02.674 --> 00:09:17.023 And it was interesting It's also interesting because like there's just they were just no women, there were no women and there was one scene in the story and I can't remember the exact was like a group of people and this like new boss guy comes in and he says something like very masculine. 00:09:17.023 --> 00:09:20.893 I don't know if it was like, Oh, you dudes need to whatever, whatever. 00:09:20.893 --> 00:09:37.643 And then they just like pan to this one woman that's sitting in the room and she's kind of like a but that was literally the pilot, like they knew what they were doing, but added, I mean, it's based on original story. 00:09:37.643 --> 00:09:38.945 So I guess they were doing women. 00:09:38.945 --> 00:09:42.248 No, I guess no, I'm sure there were, and I'm sure there weren't. 00:09:42.315 --> 00:09:46.952 But then it's again, why would you want to make a documentary about a bunch of dudes? 00:09:47.052 --> 00:09:49.221 It's kind of appealing to me. 00:09:49.221 --> 00:09:51.691 But yeah, it was just it was just the time. 00:09:51.691 --> 00:10:00.365 I get that I've been seeing quite a lot of, like, biopics about emerging tech stories from the nineties or the eighties. 00:10:00.365 --> 00:10:03.001 Like, I saw this one trailer for like Tetris. 00:10:03.001 --> 00:10:04.470 Oh, I saw that. 00:10:04.470 --> 00:10:10.942 But it's not about it's really like I find it really boring because they just talk about the business side of it. 00:10:10.942 --> 00:10:19.518 They don't really talk about the how the game was created or the back story of that, because the story about Tetris isn't actually about the guy that invented the game. 00:10:19.518 --> 00:10:23.288 It's only about the guy that found the game and then commercialized it. 00:10:23.288 --> 00:10:27.225 And to me, that's like the honestly, that to me that's the part of the boring part. 00:10:27.225 --> 00:10:38.738 Like, yeah, well, I mean, like I make films and I do screenwriting and stuff and there's some stories that I've been thinking about unpacking in more of like a tech history stories. 00:10:38.738 --> 00:10:47.647 I mean, thinking about unpacking more factionalized screenwriting way rather than like AL episodes or other podcasts that we're working on. 00:10:47.712 --> 00:10:56.822 But it is so I have I've been paying attention that there is maybe a bubble ed of of these like tech nostalgic tech history stories. 00:10:56.822 --> 00:11:10.135 But it's I mean, it's just I mean, the BlackBerry one is based in Canada, but it is it's still that same like corporate Oregon corporate story. 00:11:10.135 --> 00:11:17.809 It's like it's very much about like these commercial most like it's motivational stories about business tech. 00:11:17.809 --> 00:11:38.197 Business success is like it's the type of like movie that, you know, Cisco would watch to, like, hype their employees up about the projects that they're doing or like growth projects and which is I'm sure is fun for for anyone that's in like tech consulting. 00:11:38.197 --> 00:11:43.735 But to me, that's I want to know about the non commercial side of things. 00:11:43.735 --> 00:11:50.308 Yeah but then you know Hollywood is a machine and you know, and they stories are good within that framework. 00:11:50.308 --> 00:11:54.447 You know maybe if this was made in like it was like an indie. 00:11:54.513 --> 00:12:17.302 Mm. French film or something like, you know, like maybe that would be an indie French film about 8 minutes and I want to see I would have been interested to see, like the use of BlackBerry, maybe a little bit more than it was first used by, you know, stockbrokers, lawyers, and then suddenly teenagers were using it to send each other BBM text messages. 00:12:17.302 --> 00:12:22.006 And then that was I remember I oh, it was part of it in ages. 00:12:22.006 --> 00:12:30.249 But they're talking about how they created a way to send data, data based messages. Cool. 00:12:30.249 --> 00:12:46.164 Yeah, because then it was used by like all of my friends in 2000, I started I had my first BlackBerry, I think in 2000 and I never had 12 maybe or 2010. 00:12:46.231 --> 00:12:49.634 And all of my friends had a BlackBerry. 00:12:49.634 --> 00:12:57.408 And it was hilarious because we were all like teenagers, but we're using this technology that their dads would use. 00:12:57.408 --> 00:12:58.409 Yeah. 00:12:58.409 --> 00:13:00.879 And then and then the use of that technology changed. 00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:20.966 So it was again, very classic. Like a mobile phone story where it was first used by the workforce and by industries, and then it was used for more social or personal uses by women or teenagers and then the use of the phone. 00:13:20.966 --> 00:13:23.668 And that technology changed and also changed as hardware. 00:13:23.668 --> 00:13:32.711 So now you have like iPhones where it's more use for social networking and texting, whereas originally the telephone was really just invented for business. 00:13:32.812 --> 00:13:35.380 So yeah, quite interesting story line there. 00:13:35.380 --> 00:13:59.504 The thing that I found the most interesting, which wasn't really highlighted, was the I mean, it was important to the plot, but I kind of wish that it had played a larger role was the shift from telecommunications companies prioritizing minutes versus data? 00:13:59.672 --> 00:14:00.306 Mm hmm. 00:14:00.306 --> 00:14:04.309 So like, that plays a role in like the downfall. 00:14:04.409 --> 00:14:14.986 But yeah, like, so BlackBerry kind of invented or the way they set out sort of the idea of like database messaging. 00:14:15.086 --> 00:14:24.730 And then when you shift into the iPhone because that's that's kind of a big part of the plot as well is like when the iPhone comes out, like what? 00:14:24.830 --> 00:14:32.203 And the iPhone is data based on all of these, like, you know, other ways. 00:14:32.203 --> 00:14:41.080 And so it was like that shift, like the BlackBerry to the iPhone changed the way that we monetize mobile phones. 00:14:41.145 --> 00:14:41.880 Yeah. Yeah. 00:14:41.880 --> 00:14:56.160 And so before it was based on like minutes or based on like sending a text and then it started being more about like the clips of your phone is more about like the data that you're that you're paying for. 00:14:56.160 --> 00:15:02.735 And, and most of our messages are now done by a data and like that's what we even our phone calls. 00:15:02.735 --> 00:15:09.508 So I think that shift actually was like a really big cultural moment. 00:15:09.674 --> 00:15:10.775 Yeah. 00:15:10.775 --> 00:15:13.611 And it was interesting to see how it sort of played out. 00:15:13.611 --> 00:15:38.504 But I yeah, I kind of wish it was stronger in the film, but it was based in Canada, which I thought was really interesting because we've done a couple of episodes of stuff based in Canada and I'm intrigued about the way that their governmental systems are set up or were set up to do like funding of tech, because it seems like that was a big thing. 00:15:38.604 --> 00:15:45.144 And then I realized that our episode today that you're going to tell me about is set in Canada. 00:15:42.374 --> 00:15:45.144 So yeah, I'm excited. 00:15:45.144 --> 00:15:46.245 So learn more. 00:15:46.245 --> 00:15:47.613 Yeah, no, it's true. 00:15:47.613 --> 00:15:49.847 That is a good segue way. 00:15:49.847 --> 00:16:16.542 Yeah, I'm pretty excited about this episode because, you know, it's about how edge your computers also called computers to more creative uses than just programing because we talked about um, edu computers so far in a little bit more of like the context of how how code was taught in schools. 00:16:16.607 --> 00:16:30.788 And I think this is one of the first instances where a computer for education was invented that was supposed to be placed in subjects that were just it or programing related. 00:16:30.889 --> 00:16:46.038 Yeah, we're doing this like series of that educational can computers like hardware, but also the sort of government programs that initiated them and like why they were seen as really important and worth investing in. 00:16:46.138 --> 00:16:52.543 And we did the BBC one, the British one last last episode. 00:16:52.644 --> 00:16:54.513 We did the Micro Bee. 00:16:54.513 --> 00:16:56.581 We did the micro bee. 00:16:56.581 --> 00:16:57.416 Yeah. Yeah. 00:16:57.416 --> 00:17:00.052 So yes, please tell me tell me about. 00:17:00.052 --> 00:17:01.620 Yeah, yeah. 00:17:01.620 --> 00:17:16.367 So I mean, due to the boom of microcomputers in the seventies and eighties, educational institutions were becoming more aware of the fact that, you know, computers should be used in schools and aid the curriculum in general. 00:17:16.468 --> 00:17:34.086 And as we saw in some of our recent episodes, like you mentioned, the BBC Literacy Project and the Doomsday Project or even Calico and the Micro Bee societies were in for metastasizing, which is a word we keep referring to from our Captain episodes. 00:17:34.086 --> 00:17:36.288 It's such a good word. I like it. 00:17:36.288 --> 00:17:37.021 It's great. 00:17:37.021 --> 00:17:39.758 I also enjoy that neither of us can say it properly. 00:17:39.758 --> 00:17:42.827 We can say properly like it doesn't. 00:17:42.827 --> 00:17:50.068 It shows up as a as an incorrect word, but we've made it up, so that's fine. 00:17:50.134 --> 00:18:05.683 Um, but yeah, so policy makers and ministers in some cases were very keen to like marry computer skills with the school curriculum because they just wanted, you know, literacy, computer literacy to be part of the mainstream. 00:18:05.683 --> 00:18:18.196 They wanted their young workforce to be very productive in the future and they wanted to set them up for a successful, like, productive society. 00:18:18.297 --> 00:18:36.214 So in Canada, specific weekly, the Ontario Ministry of Education believed that computers are incredibly important for tech literacy and that the world of the near future, in quotation marks, requires an understanding of these new machines. 00:18:36.414 --> 00:18:39.050 When when was this? 00:18:36.414 --> 00:18:39.050 Because it's interesting. 00:18:39.050 --> 00:18:53.332 I like to think back to the BBC Computer Literacy project, where that was like the late seventies that really started to be thought about and they really had to convince the government to do something about it like that. 00:18:53.332 --> 00:19:03.674 It was important and it was sort of this like public outcry based on a TV special that got it to sort of start getting going. 00:19:03.808 --> 00:19:09.181 It was interesting that they that Canada was just kind of like, yep, this is we got to do it. 00:19:09.181 --> 00:19:11.782 Yeah, No, that's a really good point. 00:19:11.782 --> 00:19:11.983 Yeah. 00:19:11.983 --> 00:19:14.886 In this case it was totally flipped the other way round. 00:19:14.886 --> 00:19:27.865 So the government was actually the ones that were pushing for this change rather than the public wanting to fight for this change and having to like almost lobby the government to make these policies. 00:19:27.932 --> 00:19:30.736 But yeah, this was in 1981. 00:19:30.736 --> 00:19:42.748 So yeah, like a few years after, microcomputers were part of mainstream commercialization and production. 00:19:42.814 --> 00:20:00.865 But the person who was the kind of the spokesperson and basically the, the, the one that was like in charge of this project of informative sizing, the young the young producers, the young in the economy. 00:20:00.932 --> 00:20:03.335 She was called Betty Stevenson. 00:20:03.335 --> 00:20:15.180 And yeah, so she was the minister of Education and she decided to form this advisory committee on Computers and Education. 00:20:15.247 --> 00:20:21.486 And she yeah, oversaw the shift to having computers in schools. 00:20:21.553 --> 00:20:40.071 And this committee committee was very successful in gathering information about the kids, what they needed, how things worked in schools and wanted to kind of set up a general budget for this advancement and what that scope would then be able to provide. 00:20:40.172 --> 00:20:44.843 And so they found that many schools implemented computers already. 00:20:44.910 --> 00:20:47.346 But this would depend on multiple factors. 00:20:47.346 --> 00:21:07.766 So for example, the wealth of the school in the area, if they had computers at all, it depended on whether the teachers had the time to learn to adapt to the their curriculum type and whether they were necessary for the subjects in that school because you would only really have computers at the time if you were teaching I.T. 00:21:07.766 --> 00:21:10.335 or programing. 00:21:07.766 --> 00:21:10.335 So some schools didn't even teach that. 00:21:10.335 --> 00:21:39.897 That's something that we're saying a few times, isn't it, that the idea of and I'm sure it's going to come up here, but that idea of like computers being used in classrooms specifically to learn about computers, because then it's like they're like, oh, this is important because people need to learn programing and things versus computers being in classrooms to aid in learning other things like maths and English and things. 00:21:39.897 --> 00:21:42.200 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:49.307 Like some classes obviously didn't need a computer at all, but like I'll get to later. 00:21:49.307 --> 00:22:03.087 The project did try to squeeze in computers into subjects where they were traditional, they used and uh, they, they implemented things like games to make that happen. 00:22:03.154 --> 00:22:04.990 But yeah, I'll get to that later. 00:22:04.990 --> 00:22:15.334 But most importantly, brands and models really vary depending on what the hardware was able to give to that subject. 00:22:15.334 --> 00:22:32.683 So the most popular microcomputer for Canadian schools was the Commodore P t, which had a built in support for Microsoft Basic, which we covered last time, which as we know was very popular in I and programing classes. 00:22:32.784 --> 00:22:41.992 And then there was the Apple two, which was also very common because it had some educational software on it, but it was mostly aimed at early education. 00:22:41.992 --> 00:22:53.105 So the Apple ones were very graphics based and then the Commodore were a programing based and they were a bit faster. 00:22:53.171 --> 00:23:09.653 So Stephenson wanted something that was more all encompassing, something that had programing support, a high graphics card because children are very visual learners and support curriculum guidelines that require a lot of storage as well. 00:23:09.653 --> 00:23:25.136 That's kind of um, yeah, the story with the with the ABC Micro and the Australian Micro B where it was like what was on the market just wasn't suitable for children or like engaging even for adult learners. 00:23:25.202 --> 00:23:40.317 And so like trying to consult with teachers and create hardware that actually was like useful for learning versus hardware that's useful, just like for the production of like programing and things. 00:23:40.352 --> 00:23:41.318 Yeah, exactly. 00:23:41.318 --> 00:23:41.619 Yeah. 00:23:41.619 --> 00:23:52.530 I think quite a lot of people clocked on to the fact that it there was a, that the educational system was like a huge gap in the market of, of the acceleration of microcomputer production. 00:23:52.530 --> 00:23:53.632 Yeah. 00:23:53.632 --> 00:24:04.175 Um and so the Apple two was really kind of like as close as you could get to good educational software and it still just wasn't good enough. 00:24:04.241 --> 00:24:16.721 And since the main edge computers that were available were like the micro, which was really only designed for programing, again, there wasn't much hardware specifically designed for overarching educational software. 00:24:16.788 --> 00:24:21.692 And so they wanted computers that were meant for information retrieval rather than just coding. 00:24:21.893 --> 00:24:28.400 Is that what do you mean by information retrieval or is that just that dichotomy of the learning? 00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:29.534 Yeah, through it. 00:24:29.534 --> 00:24:32.703 Well, it's coding on it, so. Yeah, exactly. 00:24:32.703 --> 00:24:32.971 Yeah. 00:24:32.971 --> 00:24:37.942 So basically learning from it rather than using it to make stuff. 00:24:38.042 --> 00:24:41.645 So obviously they didn't really have access to the Internet. 00:24:41.645 --> 00:24:43.848 The Internet was really invented at that time. 00:24:43.848 --> 00:24:55.594 So they wanted, like they wanted something where instead of like reading a book about the subject, you could read it on the computer on your and Carter Encyclopedia. 00:24:55.660 --> 00:24:56.661 Exactly. 00:24:56.661 --> 00:25:09.140 Maybe have it like it be a little bit more interactive, maybe play game alongside it, and I'll get into the teaching logistics of that later. 00:25:09.374 --> 00:26:00.825 So they made the icon computer and this was just the best of both worlds because it was similar to the Commodore since it was an all in one machine and you could program do programing on it, but it also had a high graphics card like the Apple two and the icons showed 16 bit graphic, graphic user interface like systems, which was very novel for the time where, you know, most computers were eight bit and it took various programing languages including basic Pascal Fortran and C, which just came out in the late seventies and C is, you know, a pretty big starter for a lot of programing languages that we use today. 00:26:00.925 --> 00:26:04.362 And JavaScript basically. 00:26:04.461 --> 00:26:35.292 So yeah, this all sounded very exciting to the ministry and in 1983 they announced that they were to fund this new computer for the uses for schools particularly, and they figured that even with spending budget to make around 6000 machines, it was still cheaper for the government because it reduced maintenance costs as the machines were all standardized and their builds initiated a more kind of like consistent flow in the development of edu computers. 00:26:35.292 --> 00:26:37.228 So they were like, Let's do this. 00:26:37.228 --> 00:26:40.664 It's going to be great for the economy, it's going to be great for the industry. 00:26:40.765 --> 00:26:43.768 Um, you know, let's go for it. 00:26:43.934 --> 00:26:52.009 They employed the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance Carter to develop specs for the machines. 00:26:52.109 --> 00:27:05.155 So yeah, it was kind of this classic homegrown tech project made by the country to support the country, you know, type of narrative, um, which we love to see. 00:27:05.356 --> 00:27:07.625 We love to see it I guess. 00:27:07.625 --> 00:27:08.993 I guess we love to see it. 00:27:08.993 --> 00:27:20.305 We love it, but, but there's always about but of course it was easier said than done after it had come out in 1984. 00:27:20.305 --> 00:27:22.272 The project was more popular among what? 00:27:22.272 --> 00:27:25.009 Ah yeah. Tech people I know, right? 00:27:25.009 --> 00:27:25.276 Yeah. 00:27:25.276 --> 00:27:31.082 Truly, the project was more popular amongst the tech people than the education people. 00:27:31.082 --> 00:27:33.183 So I did well. 00:27:33.183 --> 00:27:41.192 It boosted the microcomputer industry like of the like because they were getting money to make computers. 00:27:41.192 --> 00:27:43.560 Yeah, they were getting money to make computers. 00:27:43.560 --> 00:27:48.866 They were also like, really like pushing the boundaries of what computers were doing at the time. 00:27:48.866 --> 00:27:59.210 And people thought it was like a great achievement actually, but it weighed quite heavy, heavily on educators. 00:27:59.309 --> 00:28:02.279 So teachers were concerned with two things. 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:09.887 One, that the machine wouldn't be powerful enough to host all their needs, and two, that it would take too long to learn. 00:28:09.988 --> 00:28:14.459 Very similar to One Laptop per Child project. 00:28:14.526 --> 00:28:19.596 They just kind of believed that other things could be funded instead of the microcomputer. 00:28:19.663 --> 00:28:30.709 I mean, it it is kind of this thing of like how if you can say, oh, like let's put computers in the schools, the teachers have to learn this whole new technology and teach it to children. 00:28:30.709 --> 00:28:40.751 And then like maybe they're not using it to learn programing, maybe they're using it to learn like touch typing or spelling or something like that. With these games. 00:28:40.751 --> 00:28:46.724 But the reality is at this point, like the kids probably could learn those skills better. 00:28:46.724 --> 00:28:50.260 I mean, touch having, but bit better without the computer. 00:28:50.361 --> 00:29:01.806 But having the computer integrated into all of these different subject areas was like the key part of forming like a digitally literate generation. 00:29:01.873 --> 00:29:07.979 And so like the success of it is not something that could necessarily be seen at that time. 00:29:07.979 --> 00:29:17.454 And I can imagine that that would feel like a lot of work and a really big shift for teachers to like move into that when they when they know how. 00:29:17.454 --> 00:29:23.827 You'd need very specific teachers that were like excited about new technology. Yeah, definitely. 00:29:23.827 --> 00:29:27.365 And see the benefits of like how that would make their job easier. 00:29:27.365 --> 00:29:27.664 Yeah. 00:29:27.664 --> 00:29:35.405 And especially if you like working to curriculum and then you're suddenly having to incorporate this other thing. 00:29:35.472 --> 00:29:37.174 Yeah, I don't know. 00:29:37.174 --> 00:29:39.042 I get it. I get it. 00:29:39.042 --> 00:29:41.278 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 00:29:41.278 --> 00:29:46.651 I mean, the critics were wrong about the first concern. 00:29:46.718 --> 00:29:49.721 The machine was very powerful. 00:29:49.753 --> 00:29:57.127 It was almost too powerful, and it came out because it was amazing for the standard of the time. 00:29:57.127 --> 00:30:01.065 It had a trackball for the pointing the mouse. 00:30:01.165 --> 00:30:04.536 It came with a headset, with a built in voice synthesis. 00:30:04.803 --> 00:30:18.148 Oh, the computer had a processor that enabled multitasking operating systems as the CPU was the Intel 80186 Of course it becomes relevant later on. 00:30:18.148 --> 00:30:28.859 Okay. Oh, I remember it also supported color graphics and the keyboard had accented characters for the French. 00:30:28.859 --> 00:30:31.362 He's a French. It's the color. 00:30:31.362 --> 00:30:33.163 The color graphics thing is interesting. 00:30:33.163 --> 00:30:46.176 I feel like that's come up so many times with these educational computers where it's the thing that when they, like, consult with teachers about like what's important for kids color graphics is something that has just come up time and time again. 00:30:46.176 --> 00:30:51.115 That didn't happen, that wasn't really existing before. 00:30:51.182 --> 00:30:52.250 And I don't know if it's like that. 00:30:52.250 --> 00:31:02.660 That was before these computers were invented versus like before just this time that computers had reached the point where they could have it. But yeah, I mean, I guess it makes sense. 00:31:02.660 --> 00:31:10.468 It makes sense again, like kids are just all visual learners and like, they need visual references to like, learn stuff. 00:31:10.535 --> 00:31:18.276 But yeah, the color graphics was like a pretty big thing for the icon and it's pretty big. 00:31:18.276 --> 00:31:20.211 Like selling point. 00:31:20.211 --> 00:31:28.786 There was also no storage on the computer itself, but it relied on hard drives that connected to a networked server called the Lexicon. 00:31:28.886 --> 00:31:31.556 Lexicon like lexicon, Yes. 00:31:31.556 --> 00:31:32.490 Oh my God, it does. 00:31:32.490 --> 00:31:34.592 I can't stand for something. 00:31:34.592 --> 00:31:36.361 I couldn't find this out. 00:31:36.361 --> 00:31:39.797 I don't know if I'm just being dumb, but I couldn't find. 00:31:39.897 --> 00:31:44.935 I feel like the person that named then Networks of a lexicon. 00:31:45.002 --> 00:31:46.904 Yes. Are happy with themselves. 00:31:46.904 --> 00:31:50.074 Yeah. Have been very chuffed. Yeah. 00:31:50.074 --> 00:31:54.311 So it didn't have a floppy, which is a very, very ahead of its time. 00:31:54.378 --> 00:32:04.955 Although actually after a while you could still use floppies to copy things to it, but you had to use Unix commands to do this. 00:32:04.955 --> 00:32:08.593 So this came in like a later version, but the first version that came out didn't have a floppy. 00:32:08.593 --> 00:32:13.230 So everything was housed on this server exactly like an external drive. 00:32:13.230 --> 00:32:13.698 Yeah. 00:32:13.698 --> 00:32:16.667 And this was like a network server that the school would use. Yeah. 00:32:16.667 --> 00:32:20.538 So each school would have their own network. 00:32:20.637 --> 00:32:21.940 Yeah. 00:32:21.940 --> 00:32:22.573 Interesting. 00:32:22.573 --> 00:32:24.107 Like their own, like, hard drives. 00:32:24.107 --> 00:32:26.810 Yeah. Yeah. 00:32:26.810 --> 00:32:43.861 So Robert Arn, who was a member of the Carter team, set up Camp Corp, which was the Canadian Educational Microprocessor Corporation, which then got the $10 million grant or contract to build these machines. 00:32:43.861 --> 00:32:50.067 And various other parts of other institutional money were awarded to the team throughout the time. 00:32:50.067 --> 00:32:55.740 But again, like note that this is all in Canadian dollars, So this might be a bit of a sense that maybe it's like less. 00:32:55.740 --> 00:32:56.606 It's more. 00:32:56.606 --> 00:32:59.009 Yeah, it's less USD. 00:32:59.009 --> 00:33:00.778 Yes. Yeah. 00:33:00.778 --> 00:33:05.215 But still like quite a lot of money. 00:33:05.282 --> 00:33:09.854 It needed to meet these like criteria. 00:33:09.854 --> 00:33:15.159 So there was this grant eligible microcomputer systems or gems. 00:33:15.159 --> 00:33:17.060 Oh, that's a notification acronym. 00:33:17.060 --> 00:33:19.497 Yeah, they're all fabulous. 00:33:19.497 --> 00:33:28.373 Chem Chem Corp is kind of core to gems like, like Lexicon, I think whatever icon stands for. 00:33:28.472 --> 00:33:28.873 Yeah. 00:33:28.873 --> 00:33:42.386 So these specifications made it a little bit more expensive to build, but eventually the computer sold for 495 CAD, which was thankfully still less expensive than most other microcomputers. 00:33:42.452 --> 00:33:46.356 This kind of sort of brings into play that idea. 00:33:46.356 --> 00:34:08.646 I mean, I maybe should do my research on this, but what we've seen in previous episodes is that there was a lot of this like government funding linked with private funding and these like grants for for tech in Canada, which has been kind of the basis of all of the all of the projects. 00:34:08.713 --> 00:34:16.019 Yeah, it's a little bit confusing where these pots of money came from, but it was mostly state funded. 00:34:16.153 --> 00:34:31.001 But yeah, so basically a year later the computers were dispersed across many schools and newer generations of the icon were still developing and evolving with kind of like more and more PC parts. 00:34:31.101 --> 00:34:44.047 So they were produced and deployed to schools until the nineties, but even by then they were almost entirely like PCs as they were running DOS and Windows programs and it's like morphed into pieces. 00:34:44.081 --> 00:34:46.150 Yeah, like off brand base space. 00:34:46.150 --> 00:34:46.717 Yeah. 00:34:46.717 --> 00:34:49.286 But you know, the kids had fun with it. 00:34:49.286 --> 00:35:01.599 Although again, most schools really just used it in programing classes and so a lot of kids found it to be useless knowledge then outside the classroom. 00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:08.672 So it was the goal to have it be just programing or was the goal to have it be like across the curriculum? 00:35:08.672 --> 00:35:22.753 It was supposed to be across the curriculum, so there were quite a few educational games on it, almost like 15, and most of them like games called the Bartlett Saga, Cross Country, Canada and Northwest. 00:35:22.753 --> 00:35:30.961 For a trader, lot of these focused focused on Canada's like national history and industry and trade. 00:35:31.027 --> 00:35:43.940 I love it I love the Northwest the tree but yeah, it was like about Canada's economy and like trade and all the different like national industries that were really important to the country. 00:35:43.940 --> 00:35:51.481 So very much like rooted in the history and, and yeah, I'm, I'm like making fun of it. 00:35:51.481 --> 00:36:02.193 But I distinctly remember a game I think about it a little bit and I have no idea what it was, but it was like an Australian game that I remember. 00:36:02.193 --> 00:36:18.842 There was like a map of Australia and there were different like areas that you could click and there were like things the one that I remember was that they had something about where people make like solar powered robot cars and then try to like race them across the desert. 00:36:19.076 --> 00:36:22.079 Wow. Like Australian data factory. 00:36:22.079 --> 00:36:36.059 MACINTOSH Yeah, no, I mean, like these were gains that had to be very specifically incorporated into classrooms that traditionally would never use computers like history, maths, geography, right? 00:36:36.059 --> 00:36:45.936 So like, you kind of had to you had to be quite inventive about like how you could make this happen. 00:36:46.003 --> 00:36:52.443 And so you would come out with hilarious names like Cross Country, Canada. 00:36:52.510 --> 00:36:59.349 But again, the actual use that kids got out of them compared to normal teaching was negligible. 00:36:59.449 --> 00:37:03.954 So, you know, kids being kids, there was quite a lot of messing around on them. 00:37:04.021 --> 00:37:17.835 I guess like them messing around on computers is an important part of computer literacy, like literacy having it in your life and like integrated that you can just go in and like mess around and play with. 00:37:17.835 --> 00:37:20.503 It is how it gets into your brain. 00:37:20.503 --> 00:37:21.505 Yeah, absolutely. 00:37:21.505 --> 00:37:28.478 There's some really funny anecdotes by commenters on old computers WSJ.com, which is a great website, by the way. 00:37:28.478 --> 00:37:29.947 You should check it out. Amazing. 00:37:29.947 --> 00:37:34.818 I want that You can you can actually like navigate the website with with your keyboard. 00:37:34.818 --> 00:37:46.630 It's fabulous by one of the one of the commentators writes something really funny and the actual like pranks that they did with these computers was amazing. 00:37:46.630 --> 00:37:52.003 Like the hacks that they thought up were just great. 00:37:52.103 --> 00:37:56.273 So yeah, I'll I'll just read out one of this comment. 00:37:56.273 --> 00:38:00.610 I don't really remember playing any games on them. 00:38:00.811 --> 00:38:11.355 I do remember making a sport of spinning the track ball forcefully enough to get it to jump out of its socket and flying across the room like that and shoulder surfing. 00:38:11.454 --> 00:38:15.559 Shoulder surfing. Is that like looking over someone's shoulder? 00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:17.561 Yeah, I think so, yeah. 00:38:17.561 --> 00:38:18.996 That and shoulder surfing. 00:38:18.996 --> 00:38:24.902 The teachers super user passwords so we could create our own super user accounts on it. 00:38:24.902 --> 00:38:41.818 There was a cool little animation program on it too, that you could draw sort of frame by frame line graphics, which would inevitably use to make dirty animations and add them to students log in files so that they logged in the teacher would give them crap. 00:38:41.885 --> 00:38:51.161 Oh my God, that and adding log out to other students, start log scripts so that when they logged in they'd get logged right out. 00:38:51.161 --> 00:38:54.097 Again, that's programing. 00:38:54.097 --> 00:38:56.400 That's programing. Yeah. 00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:59.969 This is by user management from 2005. 00:39:00.103 --> 00:39:02.639 So the show is I think I'm still not over that. 00:39:02.639 --> 00:39:13.050 I it is such a thing like when there was just like limited privacy on computers because there was like one and so you'd just be using it. 00:39:13.050 --> 00:39:38.576 And like particularly in classrooms where people would stand around and like it would be a group of kids playing So I saw this in my, I did a project about com in San Diego and this idea of like that, it's a you know, it's an educational computer program, but the actual experience of using the early common San Diego games for like for the kids use like the memories of it, a lot of that is a social thing. 00:39:38.576 --> 00:39:40.543 It's a one person game. 00:39:40.543 --> 00:39:44.681 But it would be a case where like one person would be sitting at the computer in the classroom. 00:39:44.681 --> 00:39:47.918 There'd be like six kids around and you know, you could swap. 00:39:47.918 --> 00:39:49.353 Yeah, yeah. 00:39:49.353 --> 00:39:53.056 Or like looking over each other show like the at the person's shoulder and suggesting things. 00:39:53.056 --> 00:40:05.802 And so that like it, even though if something is designed as a sort of single player game on a computer in reality in this era it was, it was a social activity. 00:40:05.802 --> 00:40:06.469 Yeah Yeah. 00:40:06.469 --> 00:40:18.014 And also the social dynamics of it must have been so important because you would have to, you know, give turns to your friends and it would be like this, this learning how to share, right. 00:40:18.047 --> 00:40:22.987 Like learning how to share entertainment, how to share space, how to be polite, how to have fun. 00:40:22.987 --> 00:40:39.769 But yeah, it's quite fun to hear how like this system just had like hardly any cybersecurity didn't have it in the fact that there's no like the fact that you could just like go into different students dot login given the way that they did that was by spying. 00:40:39.869 --> 00:40:41.771 Yeah like not even text file. 00:40:41.771 --> 00:40:45.842 Just like. Yeah. Life spying. Yeah. 00:40:45.909 --> 00:40:47.978 But getting a super user account. 00:40:47.978 --> 00:40:50.246 Some amazing so much power. 00:40:50.246 --> 00:40:51.782 Yeah. 00:40:51.782 --> 00:41:05.896 So other than that, kind of like mucking about in classrooms, um, the project got a lot of criticism institutionally as well for being like too top down heavy. 00:41:05.996 --> 00:41:12.168 So like just using too much money from the state for something that teachers were quite unsatisfied with. 00:41:12.268 --> 00:41:20.878 I guess it's hard to quantify the value of like mucking around even like, you know, we can say that, but that's important. 00:41:20.878 --> 00:41:23.581 But how do you like put that down on paper? 00:41:23.581 --> 00:41:26.016 Yeah, exactly. The moment. Yeah. 00:41:26.016 --> 00:41:26.250 Yeah. 00:41:26.250 --> 00:41:36.393 I'm sure teachers found it like, funny and kind of cool, but also annoying because they would just want to get, you know, get going with the lesson. 00:41:36.460 --> 00:41:48.873 But yeah, and then the fact that it was, it was to resolve equality between schools was still very ostentatious because schools still had to purchase the machines themselves. 00:41:48.938 --> 00:41:54.512 So obviously some couldn't afford it, which was the biggest caveat. 00:41:54.711 --> 00:42:03.721 How do you think that that was going to work if the whole concept, like you talked about at the start, about how they were like, Oh, there's like some rich schools that can afford computers and some that can't. 00:42:03.721 --> 00:42:06.856 And I guess computers are cheaper, but only back. 00:42:06.856 --> 00:42:09.293 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:42:09.293 --> 00:42:11.128 It was a it was a big problem. 00:42:11.128 --> 00:42:18.101 I think the government somehow throughout that time decided that they needed to get that money back somehow. 00:42:18.101 --> 00:42:20.237 And so charging for the product. 00:42:20.237 --> 00:42:22.072 Um, yeah, well that's the downfall. 00:42:22.072 --> 00:42:24.007 But that's the downfall. 00:42:24.007 --> 00:42:35.920 Yeah, but yeah, it was like it was a big part of this like national debate where obviously taxpayers money went into making this thing and then taxpayers had to buy it. 00:42:35.985 --> 00:42:36.686 Yeah, I don't know. 00:42:36.686 --> 00:42:56.039 I was having a conversation about this with my boyfriend today and he was like, Well, it's it's always like quite it's always quite like a poisonous conversation to have when you start to define yourself as like a tax payer because like, you know, paying tax is like this thing that you do. 00:42:56.039 --> 00:43:03.813 And it should always kind of be seen as like a little bit vague because you don't truly really know where your money is going to. 00:43:00.844 --> 00:43:03.813 But that's kind of like the whole point. 00:43:03.813 --> 00:43:06.550 It's like for the government to make that decision, right? 00:43:06.550 --> 00:43:11.922 Because you're not you're not a client, you're not a customer, you're a taxpayer. 00:43:11.989 --> 00:43:19.563 And I think when people start to see themselves as with this kind of like entitlement, things start to go a little bit south. 00:43:19.563 --> 00:43:22.465 But obviously, like, this was a big issue. 00:43:22.465 --> 00:43:44.922 Like there was quite a lot of money that was went into it, especially especially in like quite a debated space like schools where the money could have been used for so many other things and it could have been there to like improve so much more than just like put a, you know, silly computer into into classrooms where that became actually more of a distraction than something that could be learned from. 00:43:45.021 --> 00:43:52.463 And so alongside this, you know, another problem was the fact that it deployed a far worse design than promise. 00:43:52.563 --> 00:44:02.773 The teachers were told that they would be able to make their own lesson where using hypertext is less than where a actual term. 00:44:02.840 --> 00:44:04.440 Did you make it up? 00:44:04.440 --> 00:44:06.342 No, it's it's a thing. 00:44:06.342 --> 00:44:08.911 It's a great name. 00:44:06.342 --> 00:44:08.911 I like it's a great name. 00:44:08.911 --> 00:44:30.367 There's also the word courseware, which was also a similar to lesson where BSA, this was part of the pitch of the icon, like a really, really big selling point as well like to to get this actually financed and brought into production was the fact that it would have than wear on it and it would use hypertext which is very exciting and interesting. 00:44:30.434 --> 00:44:38.041 But yeah, they had this idea to use like similar techniques to the then future, you know, World Wide Web. 00:44:38.108 --> 00:44:43.579 But based on Napes Graphics rather than HTML. 00:44:43.681 --> 00:44:59.496 And it would also use like embedded bitmaps to generate information and and apps as a graphics language for use originally with video, text and teletext services. 00:44:59.563 --> 00:45:02.900 So this is how they envisioned hypertext. 00:45:02.900 --> 00:45:08.605 Basically like pages could link to other pages or run programs with C. 00:45:08.672 --> 00:45:20.983 So yeah, this was very cool and very independent lesson creation idea, which was then rejected by the ministry because they would like control over all courseware. 00:45:21.085 --> 00:45:23.987 So they were like, We want to give everyone the free to. 00:45:23.987 --> 00:45:26.989 And then this is it happened like, Oh no, yeah. 00:45:26.989 --> 00:45:29.927 So they were pitched this idea and they were like, This sounds amazing. 00:45:29.927 --> 00:45:53.851 And then throughout the development of it, they were like, No, we need to scrap this because actually it, it is this is like a disadvantage to government, I guess curriculum, the like the teachers that would have been most for having computers in the classrooms would probably be the ones that would be most excited about being able to create their own stuff. 00:45:53.851 --> 00:45:57.054 And so by doing this they really Yeah, yeah. 00:45:57.054 --> 00:46:00.791 And I think this is the way the core group of supporters. 00:46:00.891 --> 00:46:02.492 Exactly. Exactly. 00:46:02.492 --> 00:46:19.710 So this is I think really when like the shift, the mindset shift changed from the public to like hating on the icon a little bit more because this like very central part of the excitement about the icon was taken away. 00:46:19.710 --> 00:46:28.552 You know, the fact that it gained, it gave people more control, more individual control about the stuff that they were wanting to create for the kids. 00:46:28.652 --> 00:46:44.902 And this mindset really like foreshadows the fact that authorities and institutions were kind of afraid of the idea of hypertext and its power for independent and decentralized navigation and creation and learning. 00:46:45.001 --> 00:46:54.577 I suppose if they're going to all the effort to make their own computer, it's so that they have control over the ways the people are learning. 00:46:54.577 --> 00:46:56.880 And and maybe this sounded like a good idea. 00:46:56.880 --> 00:47:00.250 And then they realized that it kind of went against what they were. 00:47:00.349 --> 00:47:04.621 Yeah, give the people control but not too much control. 00:47:04.721 --> 00:47:05.454 Yeah. 00:47:05.454 --> 00:47:16.333 So, you know, like what the actual like the general vibe is looking back at the icon, do people look back and think, Oh, that was a mock up. 00:47:16.333 --> 00:47:18.568 Like we, that was like not a good thing. 00:47:18.568 --> 00:47:21.938 I think people looking back and oh, that was so cool. 00:47:22.005 --> 00:47:28.911 I think it was a little bit more like a silly project. 00:47:29.012 --> 00:47:33.217 Um, I mean, only judging from the comments on old computers dot com. 00:47:33.217 --> 00:47:37.153 I mean, really, I haven't really seen many of them going by now. 00:47:37.221 --> 00:47:59.275 Now I'm going to live my life advice from Okay, yeah, I but again, it's like it's so hard to like you said, it's so hard to quantify these things because compared to the technology that we have now, like, yeah, it was very silly and rudimentary, but it was also great at the time, but you can't really remember these things. 00:47:59.275 --> 00:48:04.547 You can't really remember how like in awe and amaze you were biotechnology when you were like eight. 00:48:04.547 --> 00:48:05.882 You know, you're just like, Oh, whatever. 00:48:05.882 --> 00:48:08.251 I'll just like, mess around on this. 00:48:08.251 --> 00:48:11.420 I'd like take the trackball out and start throwing it up like. 00:48:11.521 --> 00:48:16.626 And I guess think about the ingenuity that came into it, you know, all the engineering that came into it. 00:48:16.626 --> 00:48:20.364 You don't really think about that and you're learning so many new things at school. 00:48:20.364 --> 00:48:20.764 Yeah. 00:48:20.764 --> 00:48:26.168 That adding in a computer is just another new thing. 00:48:26.235 --> 00:48:26.670 Yeah. 00:48:26.670 --> 00:48:29.472 Which is why I like to do it at that age. 00:48:29.472 --> 00:48:30.440 Yeah. Yeah. 00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:42.686 So, yeah, as you know, as the icon wasn't able to keep up with the computer industry's competition as it basically at this point just rendered to be a slightly worse P.C. 00:48:42.753 --> 00:48:58.101 and it's because, you know, less than where it was taken out and that was like like the core central part of its selling point was taken out and its technology became more and more obsolete. 00:48:58.201 --> 00:49:10.547 In 1994, the ministry canceled the development of the icon and is now just an object in the ministry's archive. 00:49:10.646 --> 00:49:16.253 And the reason it hadn't survived competition with their real PC counterparts. 00:49:16.253 --> 00:49:24.661 In my opinion, you know, other than the fact that it wasn't provided to schools for free really is because it had scrapped the hypertext idea. 00:49:24.728 --> 00:49:49.353 So this future where all teachers could create lessons and curriculums freely and share pages and resources amongst themselves and constantly like cross-reference topics and subjects was extremely kind of like confusing and scary for the government and the multidisciplinary prospect. 00:49:49.418 --> 00:49:56.994 An entire point really of the icon was tossed out and therefore made itself obsolete. 00:49:57.094 --> 00:50:18.949 It's very interesting to think about the fact that this sort of hypertext idea and, you know, shout out to Nelson but, you know, like wanting to create things like lessons and curriculums and sharing things and all that, that that is what the teachers were really wanting in meeting. 00:50:19.048 --> 00:50:23.320 And I don't know if they ever got that. 00:50:23.420 --> 00:50:24.221 Yeah. 00:50:24.221 --> 00:50:35.731 Well, I think from anything they would have definitely been wanting a needing that if it would have also just been thought out with, with the teachers in mind. 00:50:35.731 --> 00:50:54.016 So by not creating more work for them, by making it very easy to create this stuff, because I think even if they would have allowed the implementation of lesson where they really would have really needed make the kind of like application quite strong and easy to use and very intuitive. 00:50:54.016 --> 00:50:58.188 So a lot of like design work and engineering work would have been necessary for that. 00:50:58.188 --> 00:51:06.929 So maybe it was also like the case of the government not really wanting to put that much effort into creating a developing hypertext because it would have. 00:51:06.929 --> 00:51:13.070 Yeah, like I said, it would have needed like quite a lot of computation to make it possible and to make it successful for teachers. 00:51:13.070 --> 00:51:13.269 Right. 00:51:13.269 --> 00:51:20.744 Because you don't want teachers like coding constantly to, to make a presentation or whatever. 00:51:20.744 --> 00:51:23.746 Yeah. Like some, some are into it but. 00:51:23.914 --> 00:51:26.315 Right. Get everyone to. Yeah. 00:51:26.315 --> 00:51:29.452 You don't need to like No you shouldn't be able to No. 00:51:29.452 --> 00:51:37.494 See to become a teacher but I don't know maybe maybe you would have worked, maybe it would have been very easy. 00:51:37.494 --> 00:51:44.900 Maybe would have maybe like learning how to use C would have been easier than learning how to, like, you know, make an Excel spreadsheet. 00:51:45.001 --> 00:51:45.902 So who knows? 00:51:45.902 --> 00:52:05.322 You can look at it and sort of think, Well, it's probably good that they got rid of it because the hypertext stuff, because that's not the way that things that ended up that, you know, like that's not that wouldn't have been a skill that would have been super transferable into like w w w Internet. 00:52:05.322 --> 00:52:20.603 But maybe if this had happened, then hypertext would have taken off more and what we would have gotten than the end would have been something closer to the idea of hypertext. 00:52:20.670 --> 00:52:30.380 Yeah, I think also what really excites me is the fact that hypertext could have enabled the idea of cross-referencing subject. 00:52:30.380 --> 00:52:39.356 So yeah, now we just our curriculums are just based on these buckets of like information types, you know, geography, history, science, maths, art. 00:52:39.422 --> 00:52:57.974 It's just that like a whole other end of the spectrum, but like if those things would have been dovetailed a little bit more like who knows how much more thinking could have been involved, how much more inventions could have happened if we could have like linked some of those topics together. 00:52:58.074 --> 00:53:07.516 And now we're really heading towards sort of more of a focus on interdisciplinary right. 00:53:07.617 --> 00:53:09.753 But it's decades later. 00:53:09.753 --> 00:53:14.190 Yeah, right now we have to go to like university to like, be able to study that stuff. 00:53:14.257 --> 00:53:15.324 What does it look like? 00:53:15.324 --> 00:53:16.293 So cute. 00:53:16.293 --> 00:53:19.295 It's very cu it's very cute. 00:53:19.429 --> 00:53:21.764 The trackball have charisma. 00:53:21.764 --> 00:53:24.300 It's definitely got charisma. 00:53:24.300 --> 00:53:30.539 Um, let me, uh, try and describe. Uh. 00:53:30.539 --> 00:53:32.708 Oh, it's so cute. 00:53:32.708 --> 00:53:35.978 Yeah, it's just like a square computer. 00:53:35.978 --> 00:53:37.280 It's all joined up. 00:53:37.280 --> 00:53:41.418 So the keyboards joined up with the with the screen. 00:53:41.518 --> 00:53:44.353 It does not have a mouse, you guys. 00:53:44.353 --> 00:53:47.224 It's got a trackball on the keyboard. 00:53:47.224 --> 00:53:50.025 I didn't realize that's what, that's what you've had. 00:53:50.025 --> 00:53:50.994 Yeah. Wow. 00:53:50.994 --> 00:53:53.697 So it's very impressive. 00:53:53.697 --> 00:53:58.702 Like the design of it is really great and it sort of it leans upwards. 00:53:58.702 --> 00:54:14.050 So the computer is so the keyboard is like at an angle and then the screen is actually quite high up, which again, I think ergonomically speaking would be great to have on your desk because you're not hunched over like you are with the laptop these days. 00:54:14.050 --> 00:54:18.989 Like it's literally like propped up quite high sequences, straight, straight up. 00:54:19.054 --> 00:54:20.990 So these were just designed very well. 00:54:20.990 --> 00:54:24.494 I think the hardware is really fun. 00:54:24.594 --> 00:54:30.967 And again, it's all in color, like it uses 16 bit color graphics. 00:54:30.967 --> 00:54:34.436 Um, yeah, I love it. 00:54:34.503 --> 00:54:35.838 Me too. 00:54:35.838 --> 00:54:42.778 It is really interesting how it has like it's almost like it has its own little desk. Mhm. 00:54:39.074 --> 00:54:42.778 Yeah. Yeah. 00:54:42.811 --> 00:54:46.215 It has the keyboard and the track check of the trackball. 00:54:46.282 --> 00:54:47.951 Um yeah. 00:54:47.951 --> 00:54:50.387 It's I know you're right. 00:54:50.387 --> 00:54:55.157 It's like a quintessential desktop computer. 00:54:55.257 --> 00:54:55.625 Great. 00:54:55.625 --> 00:55:00.963 Thank you so much for telling us all about this computer. 00:55:01.030 --> 00:55:01.797 Thank you. 00:55:01.797 --> 00:55:04.501 I love talking about it. 00:55:04.501 --> 00:55:07.469 You get the ones that they'd like because this one's cute. 00:55:07.469 --> 00:55:10.739 And then the One Laptop per child. 00:55:10.739 --> 00:55:11.541 Mm mm. 00:55:11.541 --> 00:55:13.143 Yeah. Was also very cute. 00:55:13.143 --> 00:55:15.679 Are cute. Yeah. 00:55:15.679 --> 00:55:18.681 Thank you so much for telling us this story. 00:55:18.815 --> 00:55:26.922 I am excited that we're developing our Canadian tech history Knowledge episode episode. 00:55:26.989 --> 00:55:33.530 I mean, I also want to say, like, hopefully we can kind of expand on how hypertext would have really changed things. 00:55:33.630 --> 00:55:38.802 Not just for the tech industries, but also for like other industries. 00:55:38.902 --> 00:55:41.804 So luckily we are working on that. 00:55:41.804 --> 00:55:43.539 That's a big topic. 00:55:43.539 --> 00:55:49.846 Um, we've got a couple more for education on computers. 00:55:49.846 --> 00:55:51.815 Thanks for listening everybody. 00:55:51.815 --> 00:55:53.817 I hope you do some fun tech history. 00:55:53.817 --> 00:55:55.385 Thanks. This week. 00:55:55.385 --> 00:55:55.652 Yeah. 00:55:55.652 --> 00:55:59.088 And we'll we'll be we'll be back with you shortly. 00:55:59.088 --> 00:56:01.523 I'm going to watch the BlackBerry biopic. 00:56:01.523 --> 00:56:06.096 I'm also going to watch I want to watch the Nam June Paik. 00:56:06.096 --> 00:56:07.731 Yeah. Documentary as well. 00:56:07.731 --> 00:56:08.965 That's still on my list. 00:56:08.965 --> 00:56:16.739 I thought the really good recommendation, I was thinking maybe they're going to say that Air Jordan film. 00:56:16.806 --> 00:56:17.706 Oh, yeah. 00:56:17.706 --> 00:56:24.414 It's a I think it you know, it's not tech that it's definitely the same era and it has, I'm sure, exactly the same narrative. 00:56:24.646 --> 00:56:26.715 The same lesson. 00:56:26.715 --> 00:56:29.719 Yeah. Cool. Cool. 00:56:29.719 --> 00:56:30.119 All right. 00:56:30.119 --> 00:56:32.822 Well, fill us in on that one next time. 00:56:32.822 --> 00:56:36.192 Yeah, Maybe I shall.