<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">Yah, that stuff was written some time ago. It could have been Ralph</div>
simply wasn't aware of Ted's contributions at the time.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That seems the logical conclusion, yes. Memory is slushy.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">It just so happens that Lexington HS in Massachusetts was the very</div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
fist installation of this system (with the second being Northern<br>
Arizona University). No surprise, since Lexington was the<br>
headquarters of DECUS and of course Massachusetts was where DEC was<br>
located as well. </blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yeah, that makes a lot of sense now. I suppose it would be best to know how the classes were conducted as well. But timesharing vs. ownership I don't think makes too big of a difference for high school programming classes because in either case the students are learning to code.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Yes, Focal of course shares similarities with BASIC. And a lot of the<br>
GE systems ran Dartmouth BASIC afaik. What I find more interesting is<br>
the claim in the comments area of the lunar lander article that<br>
someone played an earlier interpretation of it in a GE mainframe<br>
running Dartmouth BASIC in '67.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yeah, I just read that now that you mentioned. I would take that claim with a grain of salt, but it's certainly worth investigating. My guess is he mistyped the date or misremembered. We hadn't even tested the lunar module until 1968, so I don't think there would have been enough data at the time to build a game on landing on the moon. I'm not saying it's completely impossible, but he'd need some physical evidence to back that up. December 1969 seems like a more logical date.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
<a href="http://pdp-8.org/scans/an/decus-focal8/decus-focal8-169.pdf" target="_blank">http://pdp-8.org/scans/an/decus-focal8/decus-focal8-169.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Published Feb. 26th, 1971.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hey, this has an interesting reference in it as well:</div><div><br></div><div><div>1 - Computer De-cis-ion s</div><div>Acknowledgements</div><div>Computer Games Section</div>
<div>March 1970 Page1 5</div><div>Article by Dennis Van Tassel</div><div><br></div><div>So this dates the artillery game the FOCAL version was based off. It also brings up an interesting source that now needs to be tracked down. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">Computer Decisions</span> is a journal, but none of my libraries have a copy form 1970. Prospector (which searches university libraries in the CO area) doesn't have a single library with one from that year (earliest is Sept 1970). I wonder if anyone here has a copy...</div>
<div><br></div><div>Can't find digital copies, but holy cow, look at this guy's bookshelf:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.vintage-computer.com/magazines.shtml">http://www.vintage-computer.com/magazines.shtml</a></div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.vintage-computer.com/magazines.shtml"></a> </div></div></div><br>-- <br>Devin Monnens<br><a href="http://www.deserthat.com">www.deserthat.com</a><br><br>The sleep of Reason produces monsters.<br>