Purpose-Built Educational Computers in the 1980s: The Australian Experience - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 110

had been a large number of microcomputers available and potentially useable in
schools, by the second half of the decade two significant players had begun to emerge
and to displace all the others: the Apple Macintosh and the IBM PC (and compati-
bles). It was not long after this that these were the only microcomputers to occupy a
significant place in school education, particularly after the advent of the Windows
operating system (on IBM compatible PCs). An important consequence of this was
that pretty much all software development occurred only on one or other, or both, of
these platforms.
Another major development was the growing dominance of 'application software'
packages including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, graphics
package and database manager, exemplified by the increasing significance of Micro-
soft Office. The problem was that Microsoft Office was available only on the Macin-
tosh and Windows platforms and not for other microcomputers. As it is unlikely that
an Australian Educational Computer would have been built to use either of these
operating systems, it may quickly have become a Neanderthal that, although worth-
while in its own right, could not evolve further in line with emerging trends. Would
this have been the case? What if the Australian project had proceeded right through to
manufacture? How would building such a computer have stimulated the Australian
computer industry? These are more intriguing 'what if' questions to which we will
now never know the answers.
5 Conclusion
From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s several countries attempted to solve the problem
of providing useful computer systems for their schools by designing and building
their own Educational Computer Systems. This paper has briefly described the Poly
from New Zealand, the Acorn BBC from the UK and the ICON computer from Can-
ada. That Australia also started down this path to design and build its own educational
computer, but did not complete the exercise, has been the subject of this paper.
In retrospect, was the Australian exercise a waste of time and money? We suggest
that it was not a waste of time and money as some useful results emerged from this
project. The reports published by the two working groups are of value, even today, as
were the interstate connections forged during the process of researching and writing
these reports. On the other hand, given the benefits of hindsight, we also suggest that
it was probably a good thing that the project stopped after the Educational User Re-
quirement and the Educational Technical Requirement working parties had completed
their work and published their reports. It was probably a good thing that it did not
continue to the stage of a Systems Concept Study, Australian Design Specification
and manufacture of the computer. This, however, we will never know for certain.
References
1. Editorial, Executive's Fighting Pledge. Bits & Bytes, New Zealand, pp. 13-15 (1982)
2. Smythe, M.: The Poly 1 Educational Computer. Kiwi Nuggets Forum 2007 (2007),
http://www.creationz.co.nz/kiwinuggets/2007/03/poly-1-
educational-computer_07.html (cited 2010)