Purpose-Built Educational Computers in the 1980s: The Australian Experience - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 106

committee with membership reflecting the range of relevant groups and interests:
David Woodrow (St Peter Luther College, Queensland), David Ashmore (Director,
Information Technology, Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce), David
Nicholls (Assistant Director, Information Technology, Department of Industry, Tech-
nology and Commerce), Paul Jenner (Senior Education Officer, Computer Education
Unit, NSW Department of Education), Les Keedy (Newcastle University), Ralph
Leonard (Co-ordinator of Computer Resources, Angle Park Computing Centre, South
Australia), Jim Park (Head of Data Switching Networks, Telecom Australia Research
Labs), Andy Quaine (Computer Science Department, Australian Defence Force
Academy), Jim Sully (Superintendent of School Computing, Education Department of
Western Australia, Arthur Tatnall (Educational Computer Systems Analyst, State
Computer Education Centre, Ministry of Education, Victoria) and Steve Murray
(Chief Education Officer, Computer Education Program, Commonwealth Schools
Commission). The Committee met for a total of 18 days in the period June 1985 to
March 1986, finally publishing its report in mid-1986.
3.3 Recommendations
The report has two main sections, one detailing the technical requirements and the
other suggesting possible implementations [13]. In the requirements section the
Committee endeavoured to keep things as general as possible and not to mention
specific figures, such as 64k RAM, unless this was unavoidable. After almost 25
years this section still looks remarkably up to date.
It was considered that an implementation of these requirements would need to
satisfy at least three types of use: personal, classroom and school-wide. The imple-
mentation guide suggested that these could be catered for by a family of compatible
systems, having a common user interface [13], and that at some stage in the future the
way should be left open to connect these systems to computing facilities at the dis-
trict, regional, state or national levels.
3.3.1 Personal Systems
The system intended for individual use should be totally portable so that it could be
used by students in a classroom at school, in the school grounds, at home, on the bus
when travelling, or anywhere else required. It was considered likely that use by an
individual student for word processing would be its major applications, but that it
would also be used to perform applications such as use of spreadsheets, educational
simulations and the manipulation of small databases. The personal system would need
to be totally upward compatible with classroom and school systems [8, 11].
3.3.2 Classroom Systems
The computer systems normally used in the classroom need not be portable, but
should still be able to be moved around within the school. They should be able to be
configured to perform a much wider range of tasks that the Personal System, includ-
ing all those currently asked of school computers. They should be easily expandable,
possibly with plug-in cards or connection of external expansion units.