{"id":46031,"date":"2024-12-27T08:30:26","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T13:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=46031"},"modified":"2024-12-26T18:00:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T23:00:41","slug":"the-bootleg-files-computability-how-to-make-the-most-of-your-home-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/27\/the-bootleg-files-computability-how-to-make-the-most-of-your-home-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files \u2013 Computability: How to Make the Most of Your Home Computer"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 891:<\/strong> \u201cComputability: How to Make the Most of Your Home Computer\u201d (1984 educational home video starring Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN: <\/strong>On YouTube and Internet Archive. <\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: <\/strong>Only available on VHS.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: <\/strong>Woefully outdated production with no reissue value.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Nope.<\/p>\n

Forty years ago, many Americans were spending the holidays getting acquainted with a remarkable gift: their first home computer. But for those at the dawn of the digital age who only knew about computers from science-fiction films, the machines posed a complex challenge.<\/p>\n

In 1983, comedian and talk show host Steve Allen teamed with his wife, actress Jayne Meadows, on a record album called \u201cEverything You Wanted to Know About Home Computers,\u201d which provided a pleasant introduction to how home computers work and how people can get these machines to work for them. The record, which was produced by Casablanca\/Polygram Records, received a Grammy Award nomination and it inspired the creative talent involved to adapt the material into an educational video with an accompanying glossary.
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Watching the 1984 video production \u201cComputability: How to Make the Most of Your Home Computer\u201d is a strange experience at multiple levels, not the least being a recognition of the primitive nature of the computers \u2013 with their small screens offering green text on a black background, they seem more like a problem instead of a solution. And for the painfully elementary tasks the computers can handle \u2013 such as keeping track of a personal budget, balancing a checkbook or maintaining a holiday card mailing list \u2013 the machines seem like a solution in search of a problem. (Considering the tasks being accomplished in this video, the production was clearly aimed at grown-ups and not those rascally youngsters who immediately took to computing.)<\/p>\n

The video begins with an introduction from \u201cPhillip the Computer,\u201d sort of a low-rent cousin of the HAL 9000 with its condescending authoritative personality. Steve Allen appears to happily assure the viewers that the computers they will be learning about are not the \u201cterrifying, complex, mathematical brains that can outthink a mere mortal, and at a dizzying speed.\u201d Allen adds that computers can \u201cmake your life simpler or enhance it beyond your wildest dreams \u2013 but the key word is \u2018simple.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen introduces the viewer to the concepts of hardware and software \u2013 brand new pop culture terms back in the Reagan era. \u201cThis computer is hardware,\u201d says Allen before knocking his knuckles on its shell. \u201cSee how hard it is?\u201d Yes, that\u2019s the kind of humor that permeates the video \u2013 but Allen is so genial that the corny jokes are charming. He also offers explanations of what a floppy disk can do (remember those?) and the differences between RAM and ROM.<\/p>\n

Jayne Meadows arrives after a few minutes \u2013 she\u2019s a wee bit overdressed, if you don\u2019t mind a catty observation. She introduces the concepts of bit and byte \u2013 did you know there were eight bits to a byte? There are also chips \u2013 \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t want to eat these,\u201d she warns \u2013 and she also defines a modem as \u201ca device that changes the electronic impulses in a computer into sounds that can be carried over a telephone line.\u201d (Yup, remember when you couldn’t use the phone because you were on the computer?)<\/p>\n

Allen helpfully points out there are two different types of computers, the Apple and IBM machines, adding the software for one is incompatible with the other. (This video uses a Kaypro 2 machine for its demonstrations.) Allen and Meadows then sit down together to use the computer for housekeeping purposes, printing out their on-screen data on a daisy-wheel printer (remember those machines with their rat-a-tat-tat noise as the text was typed on paper?).<\/p>\n

By contemporary standards, the most glaring weakness of these early machines was their inability to offer images. Allen makes a fleeting reference to Atari and Pac Man, but throughout this production nearly everything on the computer screen is text-based \u2013 crude bar graphs are the closest we come to seeing something that is not a letter or a number. Equally unnerving to today\u2019s viewer is the absence of audio. One part of the video has Allen and Meadows learning Spanish from the computer, but Allen narrates the questions and answers on the screen \u2013 the viewer never hears the Spanish words being pronounced by the computer program.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, \u201cComputability: How to Make the Most of Your Home Computer\u201d became antiquated as home computers quickly evolved into more sophisticated machinery. Of course, the video never gained a DVD re-release. Nonetheless, it is a user-friendly relic from the digital yesteryear that can be viewed in unauthorized uploads on YouTube and Internet Archive. <\/p>\n