It doesn’t take a lot of effort to develop a love-hate relationship with a desktop computer. You only need to take a look at one of them to get the feeling that some machines are a lot smarter than we are. Over the centuries the basic justification for the historical profession has been its ability to recall details, yet few of my colleagues can boast of having half a megabyte of memory. And much like medieval scribes intimidated by the invention of the printing press, there are some of them who insist that mechanical contrivances simply are not relevant to the task of teaching the humanities. This, I respectfully submit, begs the question.
In the words of Jud Rose of ABC News, “It’s a powerful technology. Now man must decide how to use it!” Indeed, the premise for this series on microcomputers and the historian is the thesis that we can no longer afford to wait for someone to come along and tell us what to do. The profession must grasp technology by the short hairs and adapt it to its own needs. The very presence of a desktop computer in the scholar’s work area can be a constant invitation to experiment, to develop ever better ways of doing things. In an era when business administration has become a far more popular undergraduate major than history, we must face up to the problem of making our discipline more relevant than it apparently seems to some.
How to Select the Best Microcomputer System
To the uninitiated the real problem with microcomputers is both when and where to begin, for an important part of the “why now?” question is wariness about getting an Edsel. Given the rapid advance of computer technology, how can one be certain that the machine invested in today won’t be obsolete tomorrow? Well, if you begin as advised in part 2 of this series by first making some of the difficult software decisions, the matter of choosing the right hardware should be a lot easier. But, having in some cases been designed well before the current generation or sixteen-bit processor-based computers became available, some of the most popular programs are available in more than one version, and the novice must then wrestle with the problem of whether significantly lower prices should be the deciding factor in opting for an eight-bit system.
Actually here is a far more basic question of just how much RAM (Random Access Memory) will be enough. The maximum amount of RAM an eight-bit computer can use is 64K, albeit in some cases additional 64K blocks of memory can be accessed if the operating system permits “bank switching,” a procedure not supported by many software firms. By contrast, most sixteen-bit micros can handle as much as 512K or more of memory. Thus the programs they run can be much larger in size, more sophisticated in function, and faster in operation. Since the word processor and data files that scholars create are usually quite large, choosing one of the market-dominant sixteen-bit IBM PC compatibles seems most advisable.
In an address entitled “The Micro/PC Industry: IBM Domination and Future Directions,” which he delivered last October at the Executive Microcomputer Conference in Long Beach, no less a guru than Adam Osborne, former president and chairman of the board of the now bankrupt Osborne Computer Corporation, declared the IBM PC to have become the standard by which all others will be measured. Nevertheless, there are those who warn us that giant conglomerates like IBM could care less about the “person” using its personal computer, and John Dvorak writing in InfoWorld cautions his own readers to be aware of the possibility that IBM is really just an abbreviation for “I’ve Been Manipulated!”
Those firms producing IBM PC work-alikes offer compatibility on one of two levels. Either they have made their machines (Compaq and Columbia) 99.9 percent interchangeable with IBM’s model and have slavishly replicated even its most notable faults, or like Eagle they have tried to build a PC that is better designed, runs cooler and quieter, and offers users a standard typewriter keyboard. Actually, once you take the case off of any one of them, most of the really important subassemblies are made by the same handful of suppliers. Of the major items that go into its own PC, IBM makes only the keyboard. The use of standard parts has made California’s Silicon Valley very efficient, so that into the foreseeable future, whenever a manufacturer stops making a particular model or goes bankrupt like Adam Osborne, it’s still going to be comparatively easy to repair outdated equipment.
It’s also worth noting here that there is a big difference between the so-called transportable micro like Compaq, Columbia, and Kaypro that can barely be wedged under an airline seat, and true portables like Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Model 100 which fit neatly inside a thin attaché case . From my own experience I can attest that the latter is wonderful for taking notes in archives and libraries, but unlike a portable typewriter, also makes it possible to file and sort material which you can later “download” by modem to a larger computer. Moreover, with a multi-featured program like PortaCalc (Skyline Marketing Corp.), one can produce high- quality spreadsheet calculations on it at any time.
Disk Drives, Printers, and Other Peripherals
The second important hardware decision is that pertaining to data storage. By 1983 the five and one-quarter-inch floppy diskette (with a capacity of between 160 and 720K of data) had effectively become the standard for personal computers, since its drives are much less expensive and generally more convenient than the full-size eight-inch disk. However, one manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard, has begun to market a personal computer with three and one-half-inch drives that reduce the vulnerability of the magnetic diskettes by putting them inside plastic cartridges. In fact the key considerations of storage volume and data security are closely intertwined.
A giant step beyond the relatively meager capacity of the standard floppy drive is the fixed disk, which offers the convenience of high-volume data storage (rated in millions of characters, or megabytes) and an improvement in program-operating speed by a factor of eight to ten. With such features they could be extremely attractive to academic users, but due to their potential high cost in not only money but time as well, one should think twice before buying. The so-called hard disk drives are extremely delicate, should be in no way disturbed while operating, and must be sealed hermetically to eliminate possible microcontaminants. The “crash” of a hard disk storing ten megabytes or more of data and programs can really ruin your day, and using such drives in “transportable” computers like the Kaypro or the Columbia seems to me about as advisable as putting a goldfish in a bowl with a piranha.
On the other hand, more than one firm will eventually market a laser optical drive (rated in billions of characters, or gigabytes), which should do for the microcomputer what it has already done for home video recorders. Until such technology becomes readily available, anyone contemplating the purchase of a hard disk for mass data storage will likely find the Bernoulli Box (Iomega Corp.) to be an attractive alternative. Using an aerodynamic principle discovered in the eighteenth century, Iomega has developed its very own removable 10-megabyte floppy disk cartridge drive which is both resistant to microcontamination and able to withstand a shock of three times the force of gravity! Available now at very competitive prices, this new-design mass storage device seems to be one of the best yet.
It would take several articles the size of this one to adequately address the problems of choosing a printer. Suffice it to say that, of the two different types available (parallel and serial), the serial method computer-printer interface is certainly slower since it passes data bit by bit rather than eight or sixteen bits at a time in parallel. And while speed, flexibility, and other features vary widely between printers, the principal distinction is between the correspondence—quality, impact type (usually equipped with a daisy-shaped printwheel), and the dot-matrix printer, which forms its letters by priming a combination of ink dots. Most academics and editors find the print quality of an inexpensive dot-matrix primer unacceptable save for rough drafts, but those units in the $500 and up range do offer alternative character set and graphics capabilities unmatched by any daisy wheel printer .
In order to communicate by telephone with another computer terminal, one must use a modem to modulate and demodulate the signals being sent and received. Most modems arc rated at either 300 or 1200 baud, meaning they are able to handle between 2,250 and 9,000 characters per minute. Acoustic coupler units must be physically mated to a telephone handset and are less reliable than the direct connect type, which usually offer additional features such as automatic answer and dial.
Other peripherals offer potentially significant enhancements to the computer’s performance. The “mouse,” a hand-controlled device, is used to point to and move symbols on the computer screen. As it is slid around on a flat surface, the cursor makes corresponding moves on the screen. Far from being just a toy referred to by some as an executive joystick, the mouse is best used with the latest generation of integrated, graphics oriented multidimensional software just now becoming available. Likewise voice recognition and synthesis units now make it possible for someone to program the computer using only a microphone and strictly verbal commands.
Other Sources of Information
Anyone interested in obtaining more knowledge about microcomputers, languages, and application programs need only go to a neighborhood bookstore. One branch of B. Dalton in Chicago devotes the longest wall in the store entirely to books on computer technology. Unfortunately the quality of what many publishers have chosen to publish is uneven. For example, several books written by Peter A. McWilliams, a sometime TV talk show personality, have enjoyed considerable attention and sales. But despite his good humor and gentle wit, he seldom deals with his subject in any real depth, and his later works repeat much of the material from earlier titles. Typical of McWilliams’s work is The Word Processing Book (Prelude Press), which offers information that in many places is outdated, incomplete, or seriously inaccurate.
Some good guides to microcomputer usage are being published, however, and the following examples are strongly recommended: Leo J. Scanlon, IBM PC Assembly Language: A Guide for Programmers (Robert J. Brady, a division of Prentice-Hall); Using 1–2-3 (Que Corp.); and David H. Ahl, ed., Computers in Science and Social Studies: A Sourcebook of Ideas (Creative Computing Press). Magazines arc actually a much better way to keep up with the latest on the high-tech revolution. Since they get published with about half the lead time of the fastest-produced books, they are far more likely to be current. Among those recommended for their consistent high quality are InfoWorld, Interface Age, Personal Computing, Popular Computing, and the more technically oriented Byte magazine. There arc now a number of excellent IBM PC specific magazines, including Personal Computer Age, PC (sometimes referred to as the “brick”—the gigantic 774-page December 1983 issue costs only $2.95!!), PC Tech Journal, PC World, and the IBM edition of Softalk. The number of academic periodicals publishing articles on the use of microcomputers is growing slowly but surely and at present includes Collegiate Microcomputing Computers and Humanities, The History Teacher, the newsletters of the OAH and the Association for Computers and the Humanities, and IBM’s own Perspectives in Computing, available free of charge to educators.
How Historians Can Apply Themselves
The dedicated word processor had already become a standard business office fixture well before the first microcomputer was sold. But today micros are generally preferred over either time-sharing or dedicated word processing terminals, and even Wang has begun to market an IBM PC compatible. The reasons are simple but persuasive. Microcomputers offer far better value for the dollar, they have a considerably greater potential for expanded capability and, perhaps most important, they are “user-friendly” to nonclerical and nontechnical professionals alike, That last aspect makes them particularly relevant to historians, for whom the processing of words is virtually a professional linchpin.
Computer word processing offers faculty and students alike a significant opportunity to improve writing skills. The ease with which one can electronically outline, edit, manipulate, print, and store manuscript material on a micro greatly facilitates the process of experimenting with and reworking one’s own ideas. Students in particular revise more readily on a computer. And those who use the computer for self-expressive writing are enthusiastic. A Bowling Green State historian notes, “My word processor has transformed for me the process of turning ideas and research materials into text. Even though I have free access to excellent secretarial help, I prefer to use the word processor. Essentially, it’s a more efficient way of producing manuscripts.”1
Furthermore, the microcomputer can lessen what Professor Andries van Dam of Brown University calls the “dog work” of research, the physical searching through libraries for books, the retyping of bibliographies and the laborious preparation of notes and lists. For example, bibliographic materials can easily be organized on the computer and retrieved by author, title, subject, and date or place of publication. And one can choose from an abundant selection of software to accomplish such tasks. In addition to relational data bases like R:Base4000 and the word-processing utilities like Bibliography that were discussed last month, three other specialized programs can be highly recommended.
The first is Notebook (ProTem), a text-oriented DBMS with almost no restrictions on format or the amount of information that can be entered. Categories may be altered at any time, and data in the form of either notes, lists, abstracts, or bibliographies, can easily be sorted and used to generate reports. By contrast, Questext III (Information Reduction Research) allows one to organize large volumes of text through a menu-based retrieval system—in fact the program itself is completely menu driven. Material is organized along the lines of an inverted tree, with each of four levels in the hierarchy holding as many as ninety-nine lines of text. Even the computer novice should be able to use Questext III to organize and integrate lecture notes or develop manuscript outlines and lesson plans; and information can be selected, sorted, and searched either by key word or text element. The third is a different sort of utility that permits you to define quite elaborate tasks for subsequent performance by nonspecialists. With this system-building tool called StarBurst (Micropro), one can create custom menus and automate the performance of assigned tasks, linking together different application programs such as DataStar and ReportStar so that an untrained assistant can with complete confidence be left to do the real drudge work of research like data entry. Originally intended for use by executives in streamlining business computer functions, StarBurst proved extremely easy to implement on the Eagle PC, and is one of the best conceived and designed programs I have encountered.
Topics suitable for computer simulation include any events that involved an interplay of political, social, and cultural variables.
Actually, the microcomputer can do a lot more to help with bibliographic research than just maintain one’s own limited list of citations. It can be utilized as a remote terminal for searching and retrieving information by telephone from national bibliography data bases, like DIALOG Information Services (a Subsidiary of Lockheed Missile Corp.), which cover a wide range of subject areas and can even provide automatic updates of new material on a specific subject. The cost of using such information utilities is usually based on “connect time,” how long your computer is “on-line” with a particular data base. Daytime access fees range from $15 to $200 an hour and up, plus any incidental long-distance phone charges incurred. Under the name Knowledge Index, DIALOG services are available for home use after 6:00 p.m. and on weekends for a $35 start-up fee and connect time of $24 an hour. Available data bases include Books in Print, a microcomputer software and periodical index, and the US National Institute of Education’s data base ERIC. It’s been said that the marriage of microcomputers and modem has spawned a “cognitive revolution,” and there are literally hundreds of other public access on-line data bases, such as BRS (Biblio Retrieval Service). Even the nonacademic information utilities like Compuserve, The Source, and Dow Jones News Retrieval Service, which offer everything from computer games to stock market quotes, can be useful since they allow one to access encyclopedia and newspaper information at reasonable cost.
Another old problem of the academic writer, how to get a manuscript to an editor in time to meet a deadline, can also be more easily solved using the data communication capability of the microcomputer to create what’s called electronic mail. MCI Mail (MCI Communications Corp.) a nationwide electronic postal system, offers the micro user high-speed delivery of hard-copy messages through a toll-free 800 number, and at nearly half the price of comparable time-sensitive mail services. For a fee of $25, MCI guarantees to courier-deliver a seven-page letter in four hours, and for $6 offers the same overnight Express Mail that the US Postal Service wants $9.35 to provide. Problems and questions can be resolved by calling a toll-free customer support number. Next month MCI will expand its services to include word processor data file conversion.
Why Historians Need to Become Involved
There’s no reason why members of the historical profession should be any less able to take advantage of modern technology than our colleagues in the social sciences. It can be argued that our questions are often just as methodologically complex as theirs, and among our students we serve essentially the same clientele. Now I realize that someone will probably object to this on the grounds that historians deal mostly with dates and unique events, not pattern and generalizable characteristics. Well, why shouldn’t we have the aid of the computer in doing what our students frequently find the most difficult part of history, fixing the relationship between isolated events? Using a micro programmed with appropriate algorithms, we should be able to take a specific date and instantly obtain its equivalent in any other viable dating system, whether it be the Julian, the Gregorian, the Muslim Hijra, the Hebrew, the Coptic, the Ottoman Financial, or even the French Revolutionary calendar. And while we’re about it, let’s get the computer to resolve possible problems with lunar dates by giving us a graphic display of the observable appearance of the moon on the day in question.
How do I know that such things can be done on a micro? Because I’ve done them. Admittedly I had to get a mathematician to program the algorithms, but it was a team effort in which the function of the historian determined whether the project even got done at all. This is only one example of the ways in which the computer can make the day-to-day work of the historian a lot easier, but will never come to pass if we wait around for some computer professional to ask if it even should be done, let alone do it for us. Incidentally, we’ll have a fast-compiled BA-SIC version of our computerized almanac available later this year, and those who are interested should let me know as soon as possible what type of computer they are using.
A significant number of administrative chores standardly performed by everyone in education can be done more efficiently in less time with the aid of a micro. Calculation spreadsheet programs can be used to do a better job of preparing the forms our employers usually require when paying academic travel reimbursement claims. A “calc” program can certainly be useful to record and calculate student records, and by using floppy disks as data storage, one can prevent the sort of enterprising student computer hackers we read of in the daily newspapers from improving their grades with a touch of the keyboard. But most rewarding of all is what can be achieved when using the computer to aid in student advising. A very simple spreadsheet template does all the math involved in grade point ratio computation, making it easy to get answers to “what if” questions and graphically show poor students how to avoid the numerical pitfalls that can lead to academic probation.
The point of this is that the scholar’s computer, which is in fact an electronic workstation, can be not only a creative catalyst, but also, in the words of Andries van Dam, “a teaching tool of unrivaled dimensions. It’s like having the best of television, transparency projectors. and chalkboards; but it’s much more malleable than any of those, and the student can control it.” In van Dam’s vision of the future, word processing alone is “not what workstations are going to be used for. They are going to be used for storing data . . . allowing people to make the connections—those associations that human beings do so well. where one thing will trigger something else. . . . That’s what excites me the most, the intellectual stepladders.”2
One of the best ways to accomplish this is by using micros right in the classroom to demonstrate the historical process Leo Tolstoy referred to as “the interaction of infinitesimals.” An imaginative computer simulation can replicate the past quite vividly, allowing students to learn while they replay and attempt to influence the events of the past. The possibilities are virtually endless, and the path already fairly well defined by the less complex parlor board games played by previous generations. One of these for example, the Iron & Steel Game, gives players an opportunity to gain a better understanding of laissez-faire capitalism by making industrial location decisions at different moments in history. Of course the topics suitable for development as computer simulations include the rather obvious military conflict situations like the American Civil War; but also other events that involved an interplay of political, social, and cultural variables such as the Congress of Vienna, the scramble for Africa, the Norman Conquest, the General Strike, the Russian and the Puritan revolutions, and any presidential election you would care to name.
And it should be a lot easier to stimulate the student’s interest in the classroom with a computer simulation than with a textbook. You don’t have to own a T-shirt embossed with “Have you saved the universe today?” to know that games can be fun when played on computers. So, why not give your students the opportunity to run a cultural damage control evaluation on the past? Let them explore the economic aspects of trade affecting British subjects in the process of becoming Americans, or recreate the interaction of components essential to the origins of World War I.
Already commercially available is a computer simulation that replicates the development of a medieval kingdom, defined at the outset of the game in terms of the numbers of peasants, merchants, miners, and mercenaries who work a variable percentage of land and consume specific portions of the available food, wine, and spices, while paying taxes to a state defined in terms of its own limited cash and crop reserves. The student ruler(s) of the kingdom can buy, sell, tax, hire, plant, consult with the people, render atonement to ecclesiastical authorities or even make war on neighbors, just as long as events of cataclysmic proportions are avoided. For further ideas along these lines, see Larry Noonan, “Computer Simulations in the Classroom,” pages 12-15 in the David H. Ahl work noted above; and Stephen P. Hueston and Alan Joch, “Spain on a Disk: Reliving History with the PC,” PC Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 7 (December 1983), pages 316-31, where a computer hacker and a history buff explain how they developed a programmable model of tenth-century Spain.
Learning to Speak in Tongues
“Give me a lever and a place to stand,” Archimedes is supposed to have said, “and I will move the world.” For those who believe the historical profession can benefit from high tech and choose to take their stand at the computer, it should be recognized that computer languages are the levers we must learn to use. Thus it seems useful to consider the available options. A computer language is normally classified as either a compiler or an interpreter. Machine language or Assembler really isn’t a language at all, but a system of numerical tokens that prompt the computer’s microprocessor to function in its own binary code. FORTRAN is a compiled language (i.e., after writing a program you use a utility called a compiler to convert it into numerical code which will run fast, because the computer can use it without the need for an intermediate interpreter). Hierarchically structured, FORTRAN was initially developed (in 1960) for problem solving in math, science, and engineering applications. COBOL (1960) is another highly structured, compiled language developed specifically for business and commercial applications. While FORTH (1975) is also popular among those with math applications, programs written in it are not compiled before being run since the FORTH interpreter translates the program into the binary code used by the computer. Despite their prominence, none of the above languages are likely to be of much interest to the historian.
BASIC (1964) is the exception, for the nonquantitative historian can undertake many complicated tasks in this “Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code” without having to adhere to a rigid structure to achieve sophistication. Inexpensive to implement and use, Interpreter BASIC allows the programmer to inspect, modify, and “debug” his work with a minimum of inconvenience, and he can also compile the program for faster speed of operation. The problem with programs in BASIC is that they tend to be written for use on a specific kind of computer and will only run if the functions to be performed are supported by the particular interpreter being used. One of the best new implementations of BASIC for sixteen-bit computers is Personal Basic (Digital Research), which checks for correct syntax as each line of the program is entered .
If historians fail to establish a common standard in selecting computers, such as the sixteen-bit IBM PC compatibles for example, then the transportability of software between different micros becomes a major consideration. Fortunately there are two languages that fit the bill. PASCAL (1971) and C (1975) are very structured but useful languages that do not allow many different syntactic constructs. They arc therefore independent of the architecture of any particular computer, and a program written for one brand of micro will work in any other capable of using the language. PASCAL in particular was designed to be easy for programmers to learn and retain and, as previously noted, the UCSD p-System easily bridges the gap between eight- and sixteen-bit computers. If the profession ever decide to establish language and operating system standards for micros, current indications are that PASCAL and the USCD p-System will be a good bet.
One other type of programming environment must be mentioned, the special CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) languages, particularly PILOT (1974) and LOGO (1980). PILOT, an acronym for “Planned Instruction, Learning Or Testing,” is tailor-made for tasks such as drills, tests, and dialogues as it permits comparisons between words and phrases. In the past two years however, there has been a surge of interest in LOGO and its “turtle” graphics as a programming language for elementary school students. An excellent implementation of this language for use on IBM PC compatibles is Dr. Logo (Digital Research).
The general concept of CAI languages is good since they can facilitate genuinely individualized remedial work. When instructional materials are presented in a standardized format, students can drill until they have mastered the material and then move on to the next lesson. CAI has the effect of distributing the fruits of technology, for while the benefit derived by really good students will probably be very great, with more and varied kinds of illustrations to show clearly what needs to be understood, the slow learners and nonverbal students who are usually disadvantaged in the regular classroom environment can be stimulated to catch up to their peers. One of the more important things we teach in higher education is the ability to be articulate in group dialogue and confrontation. For those who have trouble interacting with others, the computer can offer an additional avenue to involvement.
As with any apparently worthwhile undertaking a lot of problems have to be faced in the beginning, but the question of whether it will ultimately prove to be worth it remains. According to private enterprise the answer is yes. Last August, TeleLearning Systems of San Francisco unveiled a package designed to bring the “computers in education” revolution to pass by transforming the personal computer into a personalized electronic university.” Nearly 200 TeleLearning courses are already available with more, including history, being planned. There are no scheduling conflicts to overcome, no parking problems to contend with. But unlike traditional correspondence courses, instruction is personalized. When beginning a course the student is first presented with a digitized photograph of the instructor, who thereafter can be reached whenever the student desires, either by electronic mail or during “office hours” at which times student and teacher can establish direct computer-to-computer contact.
On balance then, while the development of its use in the discipline of history has barely begun, the range of activities to which the microcomputer can be applied is as wide as the horizon. Historians do have an obligation to make computers responsive to the needs of the profession by “writing programs and testing existing ones. Thereby we can make the available applications fit more closely to our needs. In the words of political scientist Peter Lyman of Michigan State, microcomputers “appear to be doing exactly the opposite of what the skeptics warned. Instead of making professors less human, the machines are helping to encourage communication of both a scholarly and social nature.” Talking note of the fact that most academics seldom have any occasion to discuss their narrow specialties with colleagues, Lyman observes that “now, for the first time, they have something (in common) to discuss at department meetings.”3 Well now, if it’s going to be that easy to humanize the humanist, why not give micros a try?
A Brief Postscript
If these comments on the computer and the historical profession have stimulated your interest, I urge you to contribute to the dialogue in any way possible. Personally I would think that much could be gained by organizing some sort of historians’ computer interest group on a national level, perhaps under the auspices of the AHA. At the very least it could act as a clearinghouse of information on what has been done and what is being attempted. Another option might be to establish an electronic bulletin board to serve the same purpose. Meanwhile, I’ll be glad to provide further information on specific items mentioned in this series to anyone writing to me at the History Department, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424.
Notes
- Don Karl Rowney, “The Historian and the Microcomputer: A Student of the Past Meets the Machine of the Future,” Byte, Vol. 7, No. 7 (July 1982), p. 168. [↩]
- Quoted in Katherine Hinds, “The Computer and Education at Brown: Symbols of a Changing Time,” Brown Alumni Monthly, Vol. 84, No. 1 (September 1983), p. 30. [↩]
- Quoted in Jonathan Littman, “Computing the Classics,” PC World, Vol. 1, No. 6 (September 1983), p. 273. [↩]
An associate professor at the College of Charleston, Michael M. Finefrock earned a joint PhD in European and Near Eastern history at Princeton and recently received a Fulbright for research on Turkish economic development policy.
