hopper, 1993 [1.3.3, abstract, overview, toc, switchboard, references]

1.3.3.3 Adaptability in the Past

Beyond being concerned with how easy educational courseware is to use, there are other critical factors that have been recognized either within a single type of software, or across many different types. These are adaptability for availability and change. During the past fifteen years, the major technical problems which educators using computers have faced are the problems of standards to allow cross platform compatibility of their software. For example, in the following passage, Molnar recounts how Kemeny, the developer of BASIC, considered cross-system portability, vendor independence, and the reliance upon standards these issues imply when dealing with computer languages and applications:
 
By the time software development was complete, a new and better personal computer came out-- not compatible with the previous ones, so the software had to be rewritten. Manufacturers often seem insensitive to this terrible waste, assuming that consumers would naturally use "their" software. But the best software, particularly for education, is not written by these manufacturers, and the bewildering variety of non compatible hardware is a modern Tower of Babel." He then describes how he and his partner Tom Kurtz adapted to this challenge when they developed True BASIC for personal computers during the mid 1980's: "From the beginning we made our language portable. That is, programs written in True BASIC run, without change, on a variety of computers. This means that every time a new operating system has come out, we have done a great deal of extra programming so that True BASIC users do not have to rewrite their programs. (Molnar, 1990, p. 82)

 
It is possible that the ability to overcome the technical problems of using multiple vendor's microcomputers during the early 1980s helped contribute to the relatively successful spread of BASIC. Issues of dealing with changing platforms and the development of cross-platform capability is also recognized by developers of hypertext (VanDam, 1988).
© Mary E. Hopper | MEHopper@TheWorld.com [posted 12/04/93 | revised 04/12/13]