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	Rex Ballard - Director of Electronic Distribution
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.
	http://cnj.digex.net/~rballard


On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, David H. Rothman wrote:

> At 11:55 AM 7/5/96 -0400, Rex Ballard wrote:
> >
> >It actually takes very little to upgrade a "boat anchor" 286 machine to a
> >high-end web browser.  Breakdown is as follows. [...]
> 
> I applaud efforts of the kind you describe. Whatever works for individual
> schools and kids--for example, use of those reincarnated desktops--is fine
> with me. But many if not most people would prefer tablet-style portables for
> reading. Notice how children love to sprawl out on the floor? Or laze back
> on the sofa?
Seems like every kid I know loves to play Nintendo or Sega.  A boat-anchor
PC and a Hi-Res monitor take up about the same space.  It might be nice to
have a longer keyboard cable (extensions are available).

> Too, a good number of school districts would lack the technical
> help to upgrade the old desktops.

Most cities have some sort of vocational/technical program where this type
of work could be easily done.  It's a bit like the kids of my generation
who built go-karts and hot cars in their industrial arts classes.

The "corporate america" mentality has difficulty with the concept of a
computer that cost's less than a television and a VCR.  And for Corporate
America, the costs of aprovals, procedures, and procurement often outweigh
the cost of the computer.  I've seen several companies spend $2000 on
procedures and paperwork for a $3000 computer, and take 6 months from P.O.
Request to Delivery.  Meanwhile, a programmer making $40/hour is spinning
his wheels waiting for a boat-anchor (by today's standards) to finish
recalculating a project or compile a C++ Program.  Sometimes It's easier
to buy it yourself and get reembursed on your T&E.  I can get a "basic"
laptop for under $500, a "basic" desktop for under $600 (pentium/75).  But
it takes 2 staff-weeks to usher a P.O. through the procurement cycle.

> Just my opinion. At any rate I also
> enjoyed your other post and am glad we agree on the main thing of
> educational importance: the need to expose children to a wide range of
> materials to encourage literacy. There is, of course, an online-news angle
> here. The Net is the ultimate "Newspaper in the Classroom" program. 


> 
> David Rothman
> http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/citizen.htm
> 
> 


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue Sep 24 02:58:39 1996
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