3 ms·
When I was ~6 or so my dad showed me how to use BASIC on an Apple //e (looks like the same model in the video). I asked him essentially the same question in th
by colanderman 3y ago
When I was ~6 or so my dad showed me how to use BASIC on an Apple //e (looks like the same model in the video). I asked him essentially the same question in the video about the cursor, to which he answered simply "that's the cursor, it's waiting for you to type something".
Which my 6-year-old brain interpreted as, there is a HUMAN called the "cursor" somewhere waiting for me to type something, so they can carry out the command! This idea filled me with anxiety as I assumed they must be impatient waiting for me to figure out what command to type next.
(I fairly soon realized this was not the case. But I think I must have kept my early computer sessions quite short to avoid irking the cursor.)
- ASalazarMX 3y agoWhen I was a little kid, I loved scifi with sentient robots or computers. One day, I asked my dad (a high school teacher), what would a computer do if you ordered it to fly? He guessed it would reject the order because it was impossible. I asked him what would happen if someone programmed the computer to believe it could fly? We've only seen the word in TV, it was the mid 70s, but he correctly guessed that it would behave like it was flying. I thought it was sensible and didn't ask more questions. This little interaction has stayed with me for fifty years, and it has become surprisingly more accurate the more computing advances.