[SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

Tue Sep 9 08:04:54 PDT 2014

Thank you all for helping me with this quest!! This is all fascinating!
Yes, I was just wondering why the first video that includes the tutorial
"Mousing Around" doesn't have any audio. The first radio story that I'm
producing on this topic is about the computer mouse, so I'm hoping to find
audio of those tutorials. Do you know where I might be able to find the
audio cassette for that particular video? Or have those audio recordings
been digitized somewhere and are available to download?

@Joly- are there maybe audio instructions for the Audio II instead of
Macintosh?

@Paul C @ Peter Sachs- Thank you for checking! Yes, please let me know if
you happen to find a cassette. The disk is not as crucial since it's an
audio-only radio story. ;)

@Sue @ Chuck- Yes, any audio focused on the Apple II will work. Let me know
if you come across any!

@ All- thank you again!!

Best,
Luisa

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 7:51 AM, Paul N. Edwards <pne at umich.edu> wrote:

> Just to be sure it’s clear what Peter’s saying:
>
> "The tutorial was on a single 400K floppy disk which guided the user
> through a series of lessons to use the previously unknown mouse and
> desktop-metaphor computer-interface which we take for granted today. A
> separate audio cassette was required to describe the actions of the
> pre-recorded tutorial animations as computers were not yet capable of
> multi-media presentations of this type.”
>
> (from the description on the YouTube video)
>
> So one could have had the experience of listening to this sound track
> while watching these images, but it was not a “video” in the sense that we
> mean that today (images + sound) - it was a silent computer animation, plus
> an audio presentation on a tape cassette which one ran separately.
>
> Best,
>
> Paul
>
>
> On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:05 , Peter Sachs Collopy <peter at collopy.net> wrote:
>
> I think I might have a copy of this audiotape, or maybe a later version.
> But in any case…
>
> There is a video on YouTube which includes the sound from the
> audiocassette distributed with the Macintosh in 1984, and video from the
> tutorial disk. It also has a minute of color advertising video at the
> beginning which of course was not part of that tutorial, but the rest of it
> appears to be as one would experience it with the original media:
> https://www.youtube.com/user/Mac128DOTcom/videos.
>
> I would be curious if similar audio tutorials exist for other machines or
> if this was a peculiarity of the Mac. Anyone know of other examples?
>
> Peter
>
>
> On Sep 9, 2014, at 9:23 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP at si.edu> wrote:
>
> I do recall an advertisement for the Mac, when it first appeared, that its
> users had no need to consult the manual, as the Mac’s use was intuitively
> obvious. At the time I was very skeptical of this seemingly-outrageous
> claim; I was a die-hard DOS user, with its accompanying thick users’
> manuals and cryptic error messages. But I recall being intrigued by the ad.
> If correct, then there probably would not have been such an instructional
> video, at least not produced by Apple.
>
> Postscript: Just looked at _Byte_, special issue, Feb. 1984: “Once you
> have bought it, though, you will probably be learning how to use the Mac on
> your own. Apple will help you in this process by providing you with a
> cassette/disk combination. You boot up the 3 ½ inch disk tutorial and
> listen to the interactive lesson provided on the cassette (Of course, you
> have to have a cassette player). Although I have not seen the cassette/disk
> tutorial program, I think it will work well; text-only tutorial programs
> are fine, but many buyers of the Mac will benefit from the warmth of a
> human voice teaching them.”
>
> The National Museum of American History acquired a Mac almost on Day One;
> I’ll check & see if they got this cassette/disk combination. (Of course, if
> they have it, we will need to find a cassette player!)
>
> Paul C.
>
> From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org
> <members-bounces at sigcis.org>] On Behalf Of Paul N. Edwards
> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 7:50 AM
> To: Luisa Emmi Beck
> Cc: members at sigcis.org
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?
>
> Luisa, do you have reason to believe that such instructional videos
> existed?
>
> It’s possible, but that was not so common in the 1970s or even the 1980s
> (the Macintosh was introduced in 1984). If they did exist, they would have
> been distributed on VHS tapes. Audio CDs were introduced until 1982, and
> DVDs were not invented until 1995.
>
> I would look instead for stories in the print press - newspapers, and
> perhaps such magazines as Byte (an early personal computer hobbyist
> magazine). Or perhaps public radio archives!
>
> Best,
>
> Paul Edwards
>
> On Sep 8, 2014, at 23:28 , Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi SIGCIS members,
>
> I'm working on a radio story about the history of personal computing.
>
> I would like to find instructional videos for the first Macintosh or other
> personal computers. The goal is to give listeners a sense for how new and
> incredible the idea of personal computing was in the 1970s. Does anyone on
> this list know of where I could find such videos? I haven't been able to
> find anything on YouTube but I'm hoping to be able to track down a few
> instructional videos (or at least the audio portion of the videos).
>
> Thanks!
> Luisa
>
> (510) 856.7475
> http://luisabeck.com/
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list
> of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are athttp://
> sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription
> options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
>
> ___________________________
>
> Paul N. Edwards
> Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan
> A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global
> Warming (MIT Press, 2010)
>
> Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing)
>
> University of Michigan School of Information
> 3439 North Quad
> 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
> (734) 764-2617 (office)
> (206) 337-1523  (fax)
> pne.people.si.umich.edu
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list
> of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at
> http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription
> options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list
> of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at
> http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription
> options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
>
>
> ___________________________
>
> Paul N. Edwards
> Professor of Information <http://www.si.umich.edu/> and History
> <http://www.lsa.umich.edu/history/>, University of Michigan
> A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global
> Warming <http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/vastmachine/index.html> (MIT
> Press, 2010)
>
> Terse replies are deliberate <http://five.sentenc.es/> (and better than
> nothing)
>
> University of Michigan School of Information <http://www.si.umich.edu/>
> 3439 North Quad
> 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
> (734) 764-2617 (office)
> (206) 337-1523  (fax)
> pne.people.si.umich.edu
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Luisa

(510) 856.7475
http://luisabeck.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20140909/865f64f4/attachment-0001.htm>