[geeks] OLPCs for sale...

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
>Date: 2007/11/16 Fri AM 12:40:37 CST
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] OLPCs for sale...

>On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 06:31:05AM +0000, wa2egp at att.net wrote:
>> Laptops are NOT going to solve the problem.  It just makes it look like
>> the problem will be solved.
>
>Does anyone here remember what happened at Drexel University when they
>REQUIRED their incoming class to buy a Macintosh? 
>
>The idea was that everyone would hand in wordprocessing documents
>on floppy disks instead of papers. You can imagine what happened.
>At that time most of the incoming students had never seen a home
>computer, or if they did, used it for games.

I was required to buy a DEC Pro 350 for $1,600 when I entered Stevens 
Institute of Technology in Hoboken, it was a true fiasco. Kids got to take a 
half-credit class in FORTRAN, did their drafting homework with pencils, and 
they had to rewire the freshman dorms to have something like 15-20 amps per 
dorm room, in case all the students decided to turn on both computers while 
their dorm fridge was on. That was some very thick wire (the copper core was 
as thick as a #2 pencil...

Oh, and for output we got to sneaker net floppies to the library and use one 
of their dot matrix printers - it was real fun when the library computers died 
the day before a major homework assignment was due - the teachers showed no 
mercy "you waited to the last minute and didn't have a contingency plan"...

Oh, and the "Women in Engineering" initiative, that got over 100 freshmen 
girls on campus... I think the next year there were 20 sophomore girls - I 
wonder if the 80 smart girls that failed out decided to stick with 
engineering???

Lionel