The Battle of the 16-Bit Computers was in full swing by late 1986, with the Apple IIgs joining the fray against the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST at the lower end of the market. One of the key fronts in this battle was sound–specifically, the ability of these newer machines to produce digital music. Computer music was still in its infancy but had taken a significant step forward thanks to the development of a new standard called MIDI, which was the focus of this September 1986 episode of Computer Chronicles.

The second part of Computer Chronicles’ fourth-season look at educational software was something of a grab bag. The September 1986 episode looked at everything from software targeting preschoolers to early efforts at offering college classes online. There was even a return of our old friend the LaserDisc!

Stewart Cheifet opened the program by showing guest co-host George Morrow the VTech Learning-Window Teaching Machine, a “toy computer for kids” that parents could purchase for under $50. It taught kids math and spelling using a voice synthesizer. Cheifet noted that computers had been blamed for putting people out of jobs. Did Morrow think computers could be used effectively to train people for new jobs? Morrow said that he spent a lot of time with user groups and the professionals were using computers now as a transitional tool. The challenge for the industry was putting some “entertainment” into these products to help people make that transition.

The fourth season of Computer Chronicles premiered in September 1986 with a two-part look at educational software. In this first episode, the focus was on software used by educators in the schools. The next episode focused on educational software for the home.

George Morrow joined Stewart Cheifet as co-host for both episodes. Also joining the two hosts for the introduction: a frog sitting in a small terrarium (and no doubt enjoying the hot studio lights). Cheifet said that when he studied biology in high school, they had to kill and dissect frogs like this one. Now you could use software to do the same thing. Cheifet demonstrated Operation Frog, a frog dissection simulator running on an Apple IIc. Chiefet noted that some critics argued this type of software was no substitute for the “real thing.” Morrow disagreed. He said the software was a marvelous tool as a supplement, i.e., to do run-throughs and use as a reference tool.

Since the mid-2000s, just about every personal computer made contains a multi-core and/or multi-threaded CPU. These are both practical applications of parallel processing technology, which was still in its infancy back in March 1986 when this next Computer Chronicles episode aired. At this point, parallel processing was largely the domain of expensive “super” minicomputers that were marketed as less-expensive alternatives–relatively speaking–to traditional mainframes.

Stewart and Gary Playing with Their Trains

In his cold open, recorded at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, Stewart Cheifet showed a video camera that was part of a computerized vision system attempting to mimic the human brain by processing millions of pieces of information in milliseconds. Sequential computers couldn’t handle that kind of speed, he said, so computer scientists needed to develop computers that worked more like the human brain in terms of parallel processing.

Alexander “Sandy” Astin was a longtime professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, best known for creating an annual survey of college freshmen. Astin, who passed away this past May at the age of 89, first developed “The American Freshman” survey at the American Council for Education in 1969. He continued the project after joining the UCLA faculty.

Gary Kildall referenced Astin’s 1985 survey in a March 1986 Computer Chronicles episode on “Careers in Computing.” Notably, Astin’s survey of the previous fall’s freshman class found that only 4.4 percent of respondents “aspired to careers as computer programmers or computer analysts, down from 8.8 percent in 1983,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Astin suggested the decrease may have actually been the result of greater exposure to computers by the 1985 freshmen, as they realized computers could be useful in fields other than tech. He further speculated that students “may be misinterpreting the recent, well publicized troubles in the computer industry.”

In 1705, Oxford geometry professor Edmond Halley published a paper, A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets, which proposed that comets observed from Earth in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were in fact the same comet. Based on his calculations, Halley proposed the comet would be visible from Earth roughly every 75 years, with the next appearance expected in 1758. He never lived to see it, having died in 1741, but this prediction proved correct. Now known as Halley’s Comet (or Comet Halley), the celestial object’s most recent Earth appearance occurred in February 1986.

“Expert” systems were all the rage in the late 1980s, as demonstrated by a previous Computer Chronicles episode on their use in law enforcement. But expert systems tended to be expensive–costing tens of thousands of dollars–and thus only available to businesses and institutions. Yet by 1986 there were efforts to market lower-end systems to individual consumers. This next Chronicles episode from February 1986 looks at the meeting of the minds, as it were, between expert systems and another mid-1980s boom market: pop psychology and the self-help movement.

The major theme for this season of Computer Chronicles has been, “Why would anyone actually buy a personal computer?” This next episode from February 1986 looks at one reason–managing your investments. After all, if you have enough money to invest in the stock market, you probably had the disposable income to purchase expensive hardware and software to keep an eye on those investments.

Would You Trust a Computer with Your Money?

Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall opened the program with a short demonstration of Wizard of Wall Street, a stock market simulator from Synapse Software. Cheifet noted that while this was a game, more and more real investors were using their personal computers to manage their portfolios and conduct transactions from their homes. Would Kildall trust a computer to tell him how to invest his money? Kildall quipped he’d like to see the results of the advice first. He added that if we all followed the advice of a single computer program, it wouldn’t lead to a very interesting market. On a more serious note, he said there was a lot of value in online services, such as instant stock trading and historical stock information. He would even use a simulator like Wizard to learn more about the market and its terminology.

During this third season of Chronicles, there have already been several episodes dedicated to the impact of computers on specific vocations, including the media, politics, and medicine. (There was also an episode on the legal profession, which is among those still missing from the Internet Archive.) This next episode from January 1986 continues the trend, with a show discussing computers in law enforcement.

Giving Law Enforcement Rapid Access to Information

Stewart Cheifet delivered his introduction from an FBI office. There was a woman typing at a computer. Cheifet said she was a computer scientist for the FBI trying to solve a crime. He noted that law enforcement agencies around the country were now using computers to make police work more efficient and effective.

As enthused as Gary Kildall was about many tech products, notably optical storage, he could be equally grumpy about other subjects, such as artificial intelligence (AI). For instance, back in an early 1985 episode Kildall got noticeably irate at the creator of the Halcyon, who insisted his not-quite-ready prototype of a LaserDisc-based game system had AI. Kildall later wrote that the Halcyon’s botched on-air demo at least demonstrated that “natural languages and computers are not a good fit.”