Re: Apple ii projects for kids?

[Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>]

On Sun, 4 Sep 2011, Sam Latella wrote:

> Neat... digitizing the voice through the cassette port would be neat... is
> there a reference on the web for this?
There was an article in Byte about it, I'd say 1978 but maybe not.

The problem is, it may show off something neat, but unless someone starts 
from scratch, they are just doing what someone else has done.  Even the 
concept isn't original.

Someone more open ended is likely to teach more.

Note that Logo was intended as a play/learning environtent, "what happens 
if I do this..." and learn from the results.  Seymour Papert designed it 
after studying small children, and seeing how adult hackers at MIT 
operated.  It is a safer thing to tell a computer to do something than mix 
chemicals blindly.  The problem was, once it got out of the lab, it was 
seen as a "simple programming language" and thus the teacher sat at the 
front of the class and said "today children we are going to learn how to 
turn the cursor 90degrees...."  It wasn't for that at all.

Early computers have the advantage for this sort of play because one 
doesn't have to learn all kinds of stuff about drawing boxes and such just 
to try something simple.  My first computer in 1979 was a KIM-1, it could 
single step programs and you could view the registers after each step, and 
it was a great thing.  The books would explain what happened with the 
registers after each instruction, but here you could see it happen.  I'd 
try out instructions just by themselves to get a feel for them.  Then put 
a number of instructions together, the monitor in the KIM-1 would provide 
the "interface" so I could just add two numbers together and see what 
happened, without having to fuss over displaying them.

The Apple II at this distance isn't that much more than the KIM-1.  You 
can easily put in an instruction or 2 and see what happens, the monitor 
will single step or display results when the program stops.

Thus something more open ended is useful.  Get a parallel port, or even a 
more general parallel I/O port, and then one can start playing.  Stick 
some LEDs on the output pins, and then one can do just about anything.  I 
remember generating quadrature output, well as much as single stepping 
would allow, something I was curious about at the time and the KIM-1 let 
me play.

I remember going to a regional science fair about a decade ago, and it was 
much as I remembered.  There were the perfect projects, good for the 
process of a science fair project or good for the public ("what's in 
cosmetics", or "Cold Fusion" that was in the news at the time), but they 
looked like people trying to get good marks.  Then there was the project 
about a rocket pack, less slick and not that much substance, but clearly 
she was showing a curiosity and an interest in science that wasn't clear
with the slicker projects.  Somebody had something, I can't remember what, 
but they did something and I said "did you figure that out yourself" and 
she said "yes".  Maybe she was lying, but it was interesting because if 
she'd figured the solution by herself, that was good, even if it wasn't an 
uncommon solution the matter.

A project about recording with the cassette port has been done, and this 
could just be a rehash of it.  At least that time someone I know made a 
microphone for a school project, she had some trouble doing it so 
hopefully learned from the process of making it, rather than the project 
just being a recreation of something in the book.

   Michael