[SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

[Michael Newman]

Hi Luisa, in my research on home computers from the 1970s I haven't found
that the idea of personal computing was always represented as something new
and incredible. Computers were familiar to people (many of whom had a
negative impression of them as instruments of institutional control) and it
wasn't clear what needs a home computer would satisfy. One persistent
question in articles about home computers in magazines like *Esquire* was:
what are you actually going to do with it? A frequent answer was that you
would use a computer to learn how to use a computer. Probably the most
common use for many people who bought a computer for the home was playing
games, which wasn't so different from using something like an Atari VCS. In
advertisements for home computers on TV, you will find some of that "new
and incredible" tone -- they're selling a product, after all, though what
they're selling is as much a platform for games as it is a computer for
programming or other more "productive" uses. The "Atari brings the computer
age home" campaign would offer some nice examples of this, and some (in
poor quality) are on YouTube.

michael z. newman zigzigger <http://zigzigger.blogspot.com/> | @mznewman
<http://twitter.com/mznewman>
assoc prof, journalism, advertising, & media studies, uw-milwaukee




On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 10:28 PM, 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/
>
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