On 11/2/2014 7:35 PM, wrote:
I did encounter some of the very earliest computer "touch screens" at
Champaign-Urbana in 1977-1978. They had a popular Star Trek Game
that us undergraduates weren't typically allowed to access.

Actually, undergraduates _were_ allowed to access games like =empire
and =trek at UIUC on PLATO at that time. But you did need an
account which granted such permission. Such accounts were quite
easy to get, at least for off hours use.

We undergrads had some beginning Computer Science requirement, but I
was hopeless at COBAL and FORTRAN and my IBM punch card programs
never did work. Not even once.

I'll just say that I'm more than familiar with those required courses at UIUC.
Credentials on request. While I'm certain they don't require FORTRAN courses
for business students any more, if you can't do online research and use
business software (including spreadsheets) well, one is going to find it hard
to graduate or survive in business.

I didn't realize people still measured their personal worth according
to how much goofy **** they know about computers.

You miss the point, almost certainly deliberately. What was exotic
in 1977 (like PLATO) or mass market in 1993 (like Usenet) doesn't
define reality today. The same is true of your claims of the Red
Book defining the collecting "canon." That was almost certainly true
in 1977, although the "Coin Dealer newsletter" had been around since
1963. The c. 1980 bubble market in coins and precious metals
changed that permanently.

Today, computers are a throw-away commodity.

So what? It's the information that matters, not the hardware.

The Internet actually seems to be regressing nowadays, not
progressing.

If you judge "the internet" by Usenet, I think you're right.
But the internet has moved on. Coin collectors and dealers have
moved on as well, whether you have or not.

--
Mike Benveniste -- (Clarification Required)
You don't have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing
stranger than truth. -- Annie Leibovitz