Re:Vintage computer ads
by UncleSlacky on Sunday May 22, 2022 @08:42AM
(#31467524)
In UK universities at least, circa 1990 we had computer labs/rooms which were home to dumb terminals, or if you were lucky, Atari STs running a terminal emulator. Some of us brought our home computers to university, they were mostly Atari STs and Amigas - I actually lugged my Amstrad CPC6128 and colour monitor to campus, but never used it for course work as there was no networking in the dorm rooms. Some new-build rooms had it by 1990, and a few people had PCs linked to it by then, but only used as terminals to the mainframes and minis on the campus network.
One person on my course caused a minor stir by bringing a "laptop" to a lecture to take notes in about 1991 - the keyboard was so noisy that they only did it once!
I went to grad school for business in the mid-80s. I had a computer but I doubt there were more than a handful of other people in my class who had one. While I was there they went from a very limited computer lab in the basement with a few Macs, a Lisa!, and some DEC terminals to a much bigger lab of 286s off the library.
I was a freshman in nerd school in 1986. Out of the 8 frosh on my hall, only 2 had their own computers (I was not one of them). I don't think any of the seniors in the singles on the other side of the hall had computers either.
Computer Science courses generally just required a remote dumb terminal, such as a VT100 or ADM 3a. These were available in a few rooms around campus as well.