Bits, Bytes and Buzzwords 104; Graphs, Games and Grades

Funding for this program has been provided by compu pro manufacturers of computers for business science and industry. When we think of computers we usually see them as word processors or great mathematicians or as many of her file cabinets. But computers can also tell a story. Make games more exciting in school more appealing. Just a few keystrokes you can transform drive business figures into a picture anyone can understand is a computer picture worth a thousand computer words. I'm Jim Hart's on bits bytes and buzz words will help you decide who is going to do it who they do with here. If you go through the work desk of an average person you'll find pages and pages of numbers put

together by them. Her book keepers their accountants or their computers. Numbers give you a picture of your business but it takes time to make sense of a long list of numbers. Unless you have a computer with artistic flair business graphics or pictures that tell a quick story about your business. Mostly by charting the activity of different products customers or regions you plot numbers on a graph. Connect the dots and get an immediate impression of what's working and what isn't. You can always go back to the numbers to get the details. Since a computer specialty is numbers it should be easy to draw pictures using those numbers and it can be with the right software to draw business graphics like this. You need a graphics program. The software lets you design an x and y axis label and add some numbers and plot them. This bar chart for example compares the quarterly sales for products sold by a fictitious Novelty Company we created. It was built using data that I entered earlier. Let me show you. These figures were taken from quarterly reports. They easily could have been taken from other programs designed to

run with graphics software. I can also take this data and turn it into a pie chart to get a better sense of the relative popularity of these products. Let's take a look. If you're interested in computer graphics you need a computer that can draw pictures on a video screen. If you see a game being played on a computer it's a pretty good bet that you can use that same computer to chart your business game. It has what's called graphics capability and if you want to print copies of the charts that you make you'll need another piece of hardware that can recreate them on paper dot matrix printers with graphics capability. You can rearrange the dots to print charts graphs and pictures and make sure that you ask before you buy one because not all dot matrix printers can draw pictures. If you want to draw a lot of pictures you can buy what's called a plotter blotters draw pictures like you and I do. They use different colored pins to fill in different parts of the picture and his picture looks a lot nicer. But they're really designed with a professional graphics producer in mind. But remember even though your hardware may be capable of producing graphics it will draw a single line.

But you can be exceedingly mature after only changing in your genes and even responding to your moods can be even more exciting. That's one of the reasons arcade games take in more than 8 billion dollars in quarters a year when you own your own computer and game software you can save the quarters whether you like to destroy the. Anime lasers or solve the mystery of the Lost Continent there is a game for you and with us today. Our Chris Crawford and Bill but just to gain wizards who will share with us their views on the art of computer game design. Chris is best known for eastern front and Bill wrote one of the first video pinball games and maybe they'll give you some hints to help you win your next battle with the computer monster. Welcome Chris. Chris what do you have on your mind when you start to build a game program.

I want to try to get into the player's mind. That game is is an expression of fantasy and I want to create a real fantasy that that player can really experience and participate in the game. So I'm I'm using the game as a vehicle for expression. Bill what makes you start writing again. There are a couple different things have different modes of creation. One is if you just get an idea you decide you want to implement it will make a good game. Another might be you have a lot of pieces lying around you've been working on for a while your workshop is cluttered as it were and you have a great idea for putting together something really great comes out of it. Chris are people playing you or are they playing the computer when they play your games. Well they're playing a little robot of me and they're playing a little little toy version of me. I can't put all of myself into the computer the computer isn't that smart yet and I'm not that good a programmer anyway. But I can put a little bitty version of myself into the into the computer and that's what they're playing

against. Are you ever surprised by the way the games respond after you've written constantly. First of all when they don't work and someone calls you up and there is no such thing. It's all the time because what you're really doing when you're writing a complicated video game is creating a small world. And if it's an interesting at all it's much too complicated to predict. And so of course there are going to be times when it just totally does something different. Can you say with any certainty right now what kind of game is successful and what kind of game it is and I don't think anyone can people have tried to engineer it try to make a formula out of it and they have groups that get together and say Are we going to do this this and this will have a successful game but it never really works that way is some kind of serendipity or something that's discovered right in the middle of the project especially if it's a kind of an artistic undertaking. There's always some unexpected thing that happens that really turns it one way or the other. Ellen is dicta right a successful group. Well to write it the entire process can take up to a year.

If you're fast maybe you can shorten that to nine months. The design process is that it is the questionable one that can take up to six months of programming once you've got the idea in your head then you write the program. That might take only three months. What's the difference between design and program program. Give me an analogy here. The. It's sort of like the difference between what went into making the movie Jaws for example and what goes into making all of the copies of Jaws. The initial inspiration in the development making it an exciting interesting fantasy. That's hard. That's that's design. That's creativity. The technical aspects of writing the program that is still tedious work but nowhere near so. So demanding in talent bill is it a committee decision to write these gains or are you in for all season.

You know that all I've had to be a Man for All Seasons just because it's hard to put together groups. But it's really turning into a group thing I think. First of all someone you need a creative guy and graphics designers are getting into video games now to a lot of the bigger companies have somebody whose only job is to design monsters on the TV screen. And as computers get bigger and bigger and hard to understand for one single person it's going to become more of a it's going to like a rock group and you'll have a guy who's really good on graphics guys get on synthesizers and at the moment do you do all of that now on your own. I do it all myself and I'm a terrible egotist and I don't let anyone else do anything that I'll be forced to change. Chris why do you write games. Is it a job to you. Or are you up to Choose the world. Definitely have to change where they the game is a medium of expression. It's something I do because I have something to say about the way I see the world. It's an artistic vehicle so I try to put into my games

something that's important to me. Like what. Well I did one game about about I did two games about energy. One was about the energy crisis and one was about nuclear power plants because these are important and difficult problems and people tend to oversimplify and I wanted games that would show that. You think it's important to do something like that than to shoot down airplanes or. Well it's OK to shoot down airplanes but it's also good to have games that have a message and I wanted to I did a game about war. I feel we we've got it War is a pretty important topic and most people misunderstand it. So I did a game trying to make some points about what really goes on in war. Bill do you feel responsible for the complaints that we hear from a lot of parents that their kids spend too much time in arcades or too much time shooting down airplanes when their home is moving. Absolutely. When I think about how much time it takes me to write again 2000 hours a year sort of to do stuff and I think about 100000 or 200000 people spending that maybe 30 or

40 hours playing the game. It's a lot of human time that could be wasted it would be a bad thing so I feel that obligated definitely to make sure that there's as much meat as possible in a game that I write or a program that I write. But there is something engaging in that their time is usually spent. Do you feel I have worried about that. I have worried about my games being misunderstood. Indeed some of my war games have been misunderstood like that and that's the chance you take when you try to express yourself that people want to understand you. I try I say my piece as clearly and as well as I can and hope people don't misunderstand. Well along that line what sort of games if we can peek into your mind can we look forward to the future. Well the types of games I'd like to do I want to explore human fantasy. I want to figure out how to create fantasies that you can participate in not just fantasies that I dump on you and

say you better enjoy this fantasy of fantasy worlds that you can walk into and live in and I want to explore with them the most important thing is to explore a wide range of human fantasies movies literature all explore all different kinds of fantasies. I want to design computer games that explore all different kinds of fantasies. So that's what I'm working to build what would be your dream game. It's exactly right. You know what you're doing when you read a videogame is creating a world and I just want to create bigger and bigger world and have a megalomania. One thing I wanted to do for a long time. I may do that policing is right a solar system construction set where you your world is the space and you put planets into orbit and if they are not placed right they collide or even worse. Another thing I want to do is a dollhouse simulation just a really nice Smithsonian style dollhouse with tons of rooms and really nice furniture and people walking around inside.

And that's a real key thing putting people into games or semblances that would be really appealing. Now you raise an interesting point here. I think it's probably fair to say that most of the players of arcade games and of home computer games are teenage boys and maybe their fathers I don't know. Why has it not appealed to girls in the main. It has been because they haven't written programs for or because there is intrinsic difference between girls and boys and their attitudes toward computers and video games. I don't think there are any intrinsic differences I think there are equally popular it's just that the girls have been discouraged for a long time from in education from going into science and math it seems to happen right around high school and that's changing and women in college there were no girls in my life started any of my technical classes and later on it was getting more and more and now it's getting close to what happens. It's changing the factor I emphasize is the nature of the

fantasies that the games that we now have. Express most of our games right now express male fantasy so it comes as no surprise mostly male programmers expressing their fantasies. But if we can come up with the right fantasies I think we can have the women plugging in quarters just as furiously as the men. We just have to come up with their fantasies. Bill what's your favorite computer game outside of your own. That's a tough one. I'm bad I don't like anyone else's computer games. About the same time I'm embarrassed to admit that when I want to relax I'll play one of my own games. I really would like to see some other games that I could enjoy. OK how are you playing your own game. Above average but that's about all there are a lot of people who are better at my games than I am comes as a surprise to me if you know all the programs and all the tricks and how to win. Why not. I'm I'm not I'm not playing the game logically.

I'm playing the game as part of my fantasy I'm building a fantasy into the game and then I play my own fantasy which means I have blind spots. Other people who don't approach it they're trying to get into my fantasy but they're not as locked in as I am. You know how about you how are you truly bad at all games I was thinking maybe that's why I don't like anyone else's game because I'm so embarrassingly bad. But I don't have the right kind of concentration. Something is missing and I tend to get zapped very early on. One final question Chris on ask you this. We keep reading these stories about these young teenagers who are coming along and they're going to knock you guys out of out of the box real soon with a whole new raft of games how do you feel about that. Well I'm not worried about it they appear to be excellent programmers. But it is the design is the important thing and you don't learn design at a computer. You learn design by interacting with the real world and most of these whiz kids aren't interacting with the real world. Instead of making fools of themselves with with girls they're making fools of themselves with

computers need to know more about life right. This is not the whole world. All right Chris thank you. Business does do a good many of the I mean we have an educational specialist with us today who is also a computer expert. They were I think I was with the same tayo Office of Education. He is now with us to tell us how computers can be teachers in the classroom and at home. Welcome the right thanked him. How do you use computers to teach nowadays. Well in the computer education field we have our own set of buzzwords Jan.. We talk on the one side about teaching about the computer. In that regard we use such terms as computer literacy. We teach computer programming teach students how to operate the computer and even if we teach word processing as a career goal we call that teaching about the computer. On the other side we actually use the computer to help us teach buzz words such as computer assisted

instruction CA I normally refers to such things as drill and practice where you use the computer to interact with students giving the problems back and forth. We also use computers to simulate experiences and on a slightly higher plane we use computers to develop problem solving skills for young children. OK you brought some programs along with you that we'd like to take a look at. What's this one here. Well this program is called Story machine it's designed for very young children. There's a limited vocabulary that you can see that they are allowed to use this program can be lots of fun parents can get together with their children to encourage them to use the computer to sit down to learn the keyboard and to express things of any sort. What a child this was designed for grades ages 5 and up I guess and we've had some adults have a good time with they want to try it. All right. It's Has I've got the Kevlar here. I understand you have to enter everything in a precise way before the computer with you know using proper English grammar you would start each sentence with an article like the one of the

nouns. There's the dog jumps to store everything goes well the little story will be acted out. You know you can continue which is kind of nice you don't have to start over again voice. So if I was that little dance first I love it. This seems to me like it could be used by youngsters sort of in competition for writing stories or things like that rather than blasting things out of the Oh absolutely it's much more fun when you can start one sentence and I could follow with another one. There's even some new words you can try on there and I was you know you have me Larry I knew I was going to find out what these are dumbasses cop.

Welker's. OK so you're doing using proper grammar and I think that's important if you don't the computer actually tells you you're not doing it and it's acting it out that's kind of funny. Among other things it's teaching kids the learning can be fun. They really eat well and wonder if that'll be acceptable. You know it sounded like it was good. I wonder what kind of habits are teaching their day to day. I think I have to say the Bumpus is again you know it's teaching me how to spell. OK and you're typing using touch typing and most kids would just type one finger at a time little or take a little bit. But they're having a good time and I think that's important what do you learn from something like this. Well grammar language usage use of the keyboard and I think it's encouraging kids to write stories which is something we have trouble doing when they're

very young and we have found this kind of they have a good time at it. You mention too that you can use computer programs for simulation. What do you do with that. Well I brought a simulation along called the engine if you will type run engine. I've seen the internal combustion engine cutaway appear on the screen. Now simulations are used to to recreate things that are hard to do in a classroom and I recall in grades four five my teacher would roll this big 500 pound internal combustion cutaway model into class and explain it to us for about a day and then it would disappear. Yeah. Well here's an opportunity for a teacher to explain it to a student at any time or a whole class at any time when it seems appropriate and then be able to show it here on the computer screen what we see here. We can walk it through if you press a little stop and we could as a classroom go through it together discussing watch what happens to the Pistons when you press it again. Watch the valves on the exhaust phase. And here we are at the intake phase look at the intake valve the compression of the piston and the power stroke. And we could do this is many times as would be necessary to

explain to the class. And it's easy to do so. I mean I knew that. Two weeks later you could review it with a class in the machine would not be long gone for a child who didn't understand the first time you could sit down and the child could do it themselves or even for the child who's absent for instance comes back to school three days later doesn't necessarily have to miss the lesson. That's an example of the kind of thing that can be done. OK this is a pretty simple example though. What other kinds of areas are particularly susceptible to this sort of teaching. Well in junior high we're using a lot of biological experiments in high school certainly physics experiments that might be too expensive or too impractical to do or even explosive kind of experience you can do inside a computer. I like economic simulations and things like the stock market and things like that. And one of the most popular programs to starting about grades for all the way through to adults is called Oregon Trail where you simulate the experience of taking a group of people from Missouri all the way across the country to Oregon and

buying weapons buying food having fights and various other you have floods in Indian fights and so forth. It's a lot of fun but it gives the kids a chance and even the adults to experience what it would be like back in those days. Your experiences of the educator when is the best time to start a young boy or young girl we tend to think of computers as young boys being fascinated with. When's the best time to start a man. Will there be a sex distinction. Absolutely no sex distinction we're very excited about starting kids very very young so the girls will get involved and will will continue their education either in the computer field or in computer related fields. But I think whenever you can start whenever you can find a program that you can use in your home would be the appropriate time for preschool things are going on in this community software that I see today starting at ages 3 and 4 and 5 certainly and the kids really enjoy they take right to it I have no trouble at all by the same token Is there an age beyond which it becomes difficult for you to master a computer.

No not at all as a matter of fact I've seen some very exciting things being done with senior citizens in the area. So everybody seems to have a big interest today and I know a friend of ours for seventy fifth birthday received a home computer from the family and he has a wonderful time he calls me all the time. Let's go back to the youngsters for a minute. Were it were parents and teachers get the software programs that we're talking about here. I think in the past parents would have gone to a computer store but today we find that you can go and find packaging like this in book stores and in software stores new software stores that are cropping up. And the nice thing about the software store is in addition to looking at the packages being able to read the directions you can actually run the program on the computer before you take it home which I think is very important. OK all those are very attractive like packages How does a parent know that he or she is getting the best software and getting good software for youngster. I would suggest running it. I'd then look at. Is it appropriate. Is it appropriate use of a computer for instance I don't think a book reading turning the page on the screen is an appropriate use of the computer. Does it make effective use of graphics and sound is an

important ingredient and it seems ridiculous to say this but does a computer program go from beginning to end no matter what you press on the keyboard is it kid proof so to speak so that the program doesn't terminate in the middle just because you press the wrong thing. Have you found. In your years in education teachers are eager to use computers in the classroom. Well we found that up until about two years ago there was some question about that but today the eagerness is unbelievable every program that we've run in our community for teacher training has been sold out immediately and I think that's what I hear generally across the country from my friends teachers of all ages getting very excited about computers. Some teachers perhaps even burned out a little bit getting turned on by the computer number one and by the impact that the computer has on their kids because it really excites their kids speak of the impact how does a parent know how to evaluate how the computer is being used as well. That's important I think the parents have to ask we see a lot of schools using computers. I say somewhat less than productively I think parents should ask and I think one criteria is are the students allowed to take control of the

computer or is the computer always controlling them. In other words if the student is only doing drill work on the computer then I don't consider that to be really productive use I think the students should be able to take over and actually manipulate and control the computer a little bit. They were this is still a pretty expensive machine. Even a small computer and not everybody can afford it. And yet people who may not be able to afford a computer for their youngsters at home or maybe it's a school district that can't afford it yet would still like to have the have the advantages of knowing it. What can they do. Well the prices are dropping dramatically. That's one of the exciting things that's happening. I encourage parents of kids starting about age 8 if they're going to buy a video game I say don't buy a small computer for the same price and you've got a valuable tool a much more valuable tool for kids to use. But we're also finding various projects throughout the country putting computers into libraries into boys groups into after school activities with schools and even summer camps or involving computers so I think there's a greater variety of activities that are outside the

school that kids can get computer experience today. Are we going to all have to have a better science degrees and computers in the future to be able to survive in our society do you think. I hope not because I don't have one. Now I think there's still always going to be a very limited number of people who will be computer science degree people. There's a shortage of them right now and there's a shortage of teachers in that field. But I think most of us 98 percent of us will be computer users every day users who don't know much about the technical part I'm very unfamiliar with the technical parts of a computer but who use computers and understand how to operate them how to interact with the programs with a menu driven programs and are comfortable using them. Now we just use them in our everyday lives. I think word processing is a perfect example where you can productively use this computer for hours and you need no degree work for that he says. You don't need to be wolves and

they can draw a picture of your business. Make a business out of drawing pictures teach you how to play games for make a gain out of teaching. I'm Jim Hart's join me next time on bits bytes and balls that was me take a look. The most blatant abuse is to. You. For your copy of the book the bits bytes and buzzwords. Call 1 800 a 2:1 1000. The book is designed to complement the series and is available for 795. Plus postage and handling. For your copy call toll free 1 800 the 2 1 1000. Her. Her.

Her her. Her. Her. Funding for this program has been provided by compu pro manufacturers of computers for business science and industry.