Macintosh
vs. IBM Clone PCs : Digital Segregation in Schools
What's
all the Hype?
Some countries officially have adopted 2 official languages. Within these
countries, the languages you speak can often times determine the scope
of your rights and responsibilities, and in some cases, determine your
status.
In bilingual cultures, monolingual speakers have a definite disadvantage.
More and more, we are being confronted with the challenge of bilingual
capabilities in a world that has grown far beyond our back yards. Bilingual
speakers have an edge and are much better equipped to meet the demands
and challenges of any given culture.
It is no different in the digital world and the demand for technology
literacy (as yet another language) has grown stronger since the mid-80s.
The corporate world has undoubtedly risen to the challenge of technological
literacy, but the education world continues to struggle. The dilemna faced
within the world of education is relative to the computer platform, the
architecture of the hardware, and the associated software with a computer.
The struggle centers on decisions relative to using either Apple Computer's
Macintosh or the Personal Computer (PC).
The technology boom that we are experiencing now all started in the early
80's when the two separate platforms were born. At first, both platforms
seemed to be neck and neck, but that all changed when Apple's team began
to design a visual operating system which was adapted from a concept of
the Xerox Corporation. Apple's new operating system allowed 'ordinary'
people to point and click through their computer. You no longer needed
a genius I.Q. to operate a computer. Due to the Mac's ease of use, the
public was responding with enthusiaism and Apple seemed to be moving at
light speed ahead of their competition.
Early on, IBM Personal Computers were run by a text-based operating system
called Disk Operating System (DOS). Tech-oriented people were the only
ones who really appreciated DOS. As a result, IBM began to lose market
share. Microsoft, the same small firm contracted to DOS for IBM, was contracted
by Apple to help them increase their products usefulness. During this
time, Microsoft's staff learned the need for simplyfying the technology
behind graphical operating systems. Microsoft shook the world when they
released Windows, a graphical operating system that ran on IBM Personal
Computers.
While the playing field leveled out a little, due to Microsoft Windows,
the pendulum then began to swing in the PC's direction (Note: we did not
mention IBM). IBM made one simple mistake, they did not patent the technological
architecture behind the PC. This seemingly irrelevant move would eventually
be the direct cause of Apple's lose of market share. Since IBM did not
hold a patent, any company was free to come in and blatantly copy IBM's
architecture. That's just what happened! Thousands upon thousands of companies
worldwide began to make their own unique spin on the PC, using IBM's architecture.
This led to a great deal of competition.
Competition in business leads to innovation and price drops. Corporate
America began to take note and it was evident that by the mid-90's, PC's
had won the battle. The deciding factors seemed to revolve around price
and compatibility. PC's were much cheaper and seemed to be able to do
the same thing as more sophisticated computer systems.
While most corporations are seemingly PC, schools seem to be broken on
the issue. Most districts do not understand the issues at hand. We'll
try to bring you up to speed on where we are and where we are going.
>Next
Page
|
View the teacher message board: