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An Apple (II) for Teacher

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Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#11

Post by dhosek »

mproud wrote: post #4

As a kid who grew up in the public schools in Minnesota, MECC was amazing, and Apple II’s were everywhere. Each classroom had a computer, and our school had an entire computer lab. We had access to every piece of MECC software — history, math, spelling, social studies, and many other titles like Print Shop. All of the software was very, very good. There are a few stories about Oregon Trail, one of the most popular ga…

MECC software was ubiquitous outside Minnesota as well. I remember it showing up in my Illinois grade school in 1981–2.

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#12

Post by dhosek »

dhosek wrote: post #10
jbgreer wrote: post #9

I was fortunate to go to a high school that acquired a single Apple ][+ kept on a rolling cart that was locked in the chemistry lab closet for safekeeping. Every school day at 2:15PM there was a race to see which student could claim it until they finally kicked everyone out of the building. Thankfully I had pretty fast legs and a nearby last classroom. Our first “instructor” had the good sense to know he was never go…

I had a similar situation, first computer access was a single Apple (Packard-Bell) ][+ on a rolling cart that normally lived in the closet of the 6–8 grade science teacher at my elementary school. I would stay after school every day to write programs on that, first in BASIC and later in 6502 Assembly. Floppy disks were a luxury to me, let alone actually owning a computer, and all my programs were handwritten in spira…

To this day, my mental model of a computer is still a 64K Apple ][+ and my imaginings of how I would extend it given the capability to do so. My idea of a graphics system that didn’t rely on main memory to represent the bit map turned out to be predictive of how graphics cards now work, albeit constrained by the imagination of a high school student in the 80s.

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#14

Post by moosedev »

dhosek wrote: post #10
jbgreer wrote: post #9

I was fortunate to go to a high school that acquired a single Apple ][+ kept on a rolling cart that was locked in the chemistry lab closet for safekeeping. Every school day at 2:15PM there was a race to see which student could claim it until they finally kicked everyone out of the building. Thankfully I had pretty fast legs and a nearby last classroom. Our first “instructor” had the good sense to know he was never go…

I had a similar situation, first computer access was a single Apple (Packard-Bell) ][+ on a rolling cart that normally lived in the closet of the 6–8 grade science teacher at my elementary school. I would stay after school every day to write programs on that, first in BASIC and later in 6502 Assembly. Floppy disks were a luxury to me, let alone actually owning a computer, and all my programs were handwritten in spira…

> a single Apple (Packard-Bell) ][+

I'm curious what were you referring to here. Did Packard Bell make Apple 2 clones? I didn't find anything in a quick search.

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#15

Post by UncleSlacky »

moosedev wrote: post #14
dhosek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar situation, first computer access was a single Apple (Packard-Bell) ][+ on a rolling cart that normally lived in the closet of the 6–8 grade science teacher at my elementary school. I would stay after school every day to write programs on that, first in BASIC and later in 6502 Assembly. Floppy disks were a luxury to me, let alone actually owning a computer, and all my programs were handwritten in spira…

> a single Apple (Packard-Bell) ][+ I'm curious what were you referring to here. Did Packard Bell make Apple 2 clones? I didn't find anything in a quick search.

They might be thinking of the Bell+Howell clone:

https://www.oldcomputers.net/bellandhowell.html

https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-bell-and-howell-apple-ii/

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#16

Post by homarp »

mproud wrote: post #4

As a kid who grew up in the public schools in Minnesota, MECC was amazing, and Apple II’s were everywhere. Each classroom had a computer, and our school had an entire computer lab. We had access to every piece of MECC software — history, math, spelling, social studies, and many other titles like Print Shop. All of the software was very, very good. There are a few stories about Oregon Trail, one of the most popular ga…

A lot of MECC disk images are available on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22mecc%22

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#17

Post by LargeWu »

Didn't see it mentioned in the article, but Apple also had a program called "An Apple for a Teacher" which allowed teachers to purchase directly from Apple at a big discount for personal use. My dad secured a IIgs this way, which mostly found use as a gaming machine for myself. But it certainly helped to reinforce the Apple -> schools pipeline because teachers wanted to use what they knew.

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#18

Post by dhosek »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #15
moosedev wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a single Apple (Packard-Bell) ][+ I'm curious what were you referring to here. Did Packard Bell make Apple 2 clones? I didn't find anything in a quick search.

They might be thinking of the Bell+Howell clone: https://www.oldcomputers.net/bellandhowell.html https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-bell-and-howell-apple-ii/

Yeah, that’s what I meant. Oops.

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#19

Post by jwstarr »

mproud wrote: post #4

As a kid who grew up in the public schools in Minnesota, MECC was amazing, and Apple II’s were everywhere. Each classroom had a computer, and our school had an entire computer lab. We had access to every piece of MECC software — history, math, spelling, social studies, and many other titles like Print Shop. All of the software was very, very good. There are a few stories about Oregon Trail, one of the most popular ga…

> Supposedly, Apple put in a bid at the last minute with the state and won the school contract, and they had a virtual monopoly in the public schools in Minnesota.

Dale LaFrenz, who was helping administer MECC, states [1] that Apple won the bid because they filed the only compliant bid. The board was leaning towards TRS-80, but Radio Shack didn't want to bother with the state's bureaucratic bid process.

[1] https://conservancy.umn.edu/items/7f6d8e9e-0560-43e0-9050-3a...

Re: An Apple (II) for Teacher

#20

Post by platevoltage »

We had Apple IIgs' in school, and my aunt and uncle had one at their house. I wasted so much ImageWriter ribbon over there. Later we got our first computer, a Macintosh LC with an Apple IIe card in it, and my mom brought all the MECC software home from school. Good times.
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