David Ahl

From IAE-Pedia

Contents 1 101 Basic Games 2 Creative Computing 3 David Ahl Writing About Creative Computing 4 Work History 5 John J. Anderson Writing About David Ahl 6 Kevin Savetz 2003 Interview of David Ahl 7 Personal Note From David Moursund 8 References

"You can never have too many bungie cords, AA batteries, or rolls of duct tape." (David Ahl.)

"The circles around you can include or exclude ideas, people, and events. Draw large circles." (David Ahl.)

David H. Ahl was an early mover and shaker in the field of computers in education. Quoting from his Biography:

Author of 22 how-to books, including Basic Computer Games (the first million-selling computer book), Dad's Lessons for Living, and Dodge M37 Restoration Guide. In 1974, founded Creative Computing magazine, the world's first personal computing magazine. In 1967, devised the first computer model for forecasting the success of new consumer products. Author of more than 400 articles on technology, automotive restoration, marketing, logic puzzles, travel, market research, financial planning and investment analysis. Created Lunar Lander, Subway Scavenger, Orient Express, and 50 other computer games.

101 Basic Games

Quoting from a 1983 article written by David Ahl:

In 1971, while education product line manager at Digital Equipment Corp., I put out a call for games to educational institutions throughout North America. I was overwhelmed with the response. I selected the best games and put them together in a book, 101 Basic Computer Games. After putting the book together on my own time, I convinced reluctant managers at DEC to publish it. They were convinced it wouldn't sell. It, plus it's sequel, More Basic Computer Games have sold over half a million copies proving that people are intrigued by computer games. These two books, now published by Creative Computing Press, remain best sellers to this day.

In the preface to the third edition of Basic Computer Games (1978) I remarked that I believed that the surface of computer games had just been scratched. The personal computer (microcomputer) was then only two years old. I speculated that the most intriguing and interesting games would not be simulations of board games or sports or card games. Rather, they would be games that used the unique capabilities of the computer. I hammered away at this theme in presentations and radio and TV interviews. Most people listened politely, but were skeptical (after all, Chess is the ultimate game) or could not visualize what I had in mind ("what do you mean, 'using logic and timing to defeat animated patterns of alien creatures?' ").

Creative Computing

Quoting from the Wikipedia entry on Creative Computing:

Creative Computing was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from 1974 until 1985, Creative Computing covered the whole spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format than the rather technically-oriented BYTE. The magazine was founded by David H. Ahl, who sold it to Ziff-Davis in the early 1980s, but remained as Editor-in-Chief. Featured writers included Robert Swirsky and John J. Anderson. The magazine regularly included BASIC source code for utility programs and games, which users could manually enter into their home computers.

At the end of its run, Creative Computing was attempting to refocus on business computing (as was the trend in most computer magazines of the time), but was not successful at this and ultimately ceased publication.

Ted Nelson, known for the invention of hypertext, was briefly the editor.

David Ahl Writing About Creative Computing

As noted above, the first issue of Creative Computing came out in 1974. Here is a reference for David Ahl's first editorial in that publication:

Ahl, David (1974). Creative Computing Editorial: Birth of a Magazine. Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc1/showpage.php?page=2.

This editorial gives an excellent presentation on the trials and tribulations of starting a new publication. Quoting from this Editorial:

Early in my days as Educational Marketing Manager of Digital Equipment Corporation, it became apparent that DEC was not communicating very well with its educational users and communication among users was virtual nonexistent. Consequently, I started EDU to act as a communication vehicle between DEC, users, and prospective users. The first issue of EDU appeared in Spring of 1971.

Work History

Creative Computing marked the beginning David Ahl's career as publisher in the field of computers in education. He was already an established writer, editor, and publisher. Quoting his work history from http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Ahl/DHAbio.htm:

• Freelance writer, also Editor-at-Large, Classic Military Vehicle magazine (UK), present.
• Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Military Vehicles Magazine, 1996-2001.
• President, SBI Consulting, 1983-1996.
• Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Creative Computing Magazine, (and 5 others) 1974-1985.
• Manager, Marketing Communications, AT&T, 1974-1978.
• Education Product Line Manager, Digital Equipment Corp., 1969-1974.
• Senior Associate, Management Science Associates, 1965-1969.
• Intelligence Staff Officer, XVIII Airborne Corps, 1963-1965.

John J. Anderson Writing About David Ahl

Anderson, John J. (November 1984). Dave tells Ahl—the history of Creative Computing. (David Ahl's personal narrative.) Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n11/66_Dave_tells_Ahl__the_hist.php. Quoting from this article:

But Ahl was and remains to this day a visionary; he has for the last decade been hanging ten on the "Third Wave," as it were. Had he gotten his way at a board meeting over a decade ago, the first practical personal computers would have appeared in 1974 and sported the three letters DEC. When the mainframe priesthood was at the pinnacle of its power, Ahl was one of the original promoters of computer literacy for the masses. And from the start, he promulgated the idea that computers should be fun.

With uncanny powers of prediction, Ahl has brought the leading edge of technology to his readers. He reported on microfloppy disk drives in 1977, when 8" drives were considered state of the art. He told his readers about laser discs back in 1976, predicting their ascendency and use as computer storage devices. In 1979 Creative reported on the basics of window-nesting. CD audio disks were known to Ahl's readers as early on as 1981.

And from the beginning, Ahl geared his magazine in a manner that has engaged the very best minds. In their book Fire in the Valley, Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine define the air of Creative Computing as "intellectually playful." That is the essence of a truly creative environment--and that is why he chose the name Creative Computing.

Kevin Savetz 2003 Interview of David Ahl

Savetz, Kevin (June, 2003). An Interview with David Ahl. Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/daveahl/.

Quoting David Ahl from this interview:

What was my vision in 1974 when I started Creative Computing? My background and vision was rather thoroughly documented in the excellent article, "Dave Tells Ahl: The History of Creative Computing" by John Anderson in the 10th Anniversary issue of Creative Computing and I can't really enlarge very much on that.

About the only thing I can add to that article is that I think we used to have more fun with computers per se than people do today. I guess that's progress. Of course when I was in college at Cornell in 1956-60, we had only two computers on the entire campus, one for college administration and one in the mechanical engineering department, which is where I learned to program in machine code. Imagine today if in your application program you had to keep track of how many bits--not bytes--you wrote on a track of the magnetic storage drum so you could give a command to move the write head over to the next track at the proper time so you didn't overwrite your previous data. Yikes! I'm still blown away when I think of what we went through to do the simplest calculation. You can't imagine how happy I was when they devised the concept of an operating system and "high-level" programming languages. My graduate assistantship at Carnegie-Mellon was to convert the management game program, which was written in GATE, a small step above machine code for Bendix computers, to the new IBM language Fortran, which I had learned in my summer job with Grumman Aircraft.

Personal Note From David Moursund

I had a number of communications with David Ahl while he was publishing Creative Computing. From my point of view, he was a pleasant, enthusiastic, and innovative person. His contributions both through Creative Computing and his many books made a major difference in the field of computers in education. I felt very sad when I heard about his selling of the publicatoin in 1985.

Note that he started this publication in 1974, the year that I started The Oregon Computing teacher. Here are references (and access to) two articles I wrote for Creative Computing:

Moursund, David (1977). What is Computer Literacy?. The Best of Creative Computing, Volume 2, 1977. Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=61.

The two-page article included a 30-question computer literacy quiz. This quiz is a good representation of what people where trying to teach in computer literacy courses of that time. I used variations of this quize in a freshman level Computer Literacy course I taught a number of times while was a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oregon.

Moursund, David (November 1984). To Improve Education. Creative Computing. Retrieved 12/30/08: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n11/180_To_improve_education.php.

This article includes some background information about me, and it includes some of my philosophy of education. Quoting from the article:

I believe that the greatest potential for improved education in this country lies in helping students learn to take responsibility for themselves. This should begin at the very earliest grades (and, of course, even before children start school). "What is it that I am expected to learn? How does it tie in with what I already know? Why should I want to learn this? How can I tell if I have learned this new material?" Questions such as these should be ingrained in all students. The goal is to have every student become a self-reliant and independent learner.

Computers, of course, can play a helpful role in an educational system of self-reliant independent learners. Over the next 20 years computers will significantly supplement books as a source of information. Computers will supplement teachers as a source of instruction, testing, and feedback. Computers will become individual tools, as pencil and paper are today, to aid in the learning and problem solving process. But the student as self-reliant and as an independent learner is not dependent on computers, and progress towards such goals can occur in the absence of computers.

References

Alh, David H., Editor (1978). BASIC Computer Games. Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/. The complete book is available on the Web.

Alh, David H., Editor (1979). More. BASIC Computer Games.Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atariarchives.org/morebasicgames/. The complete book is available on the Web.

Ahl, David H. (Spring 1983). Editorial. Creative Computing. Retrieved 1/22/2009: http://www.atarimagazines.com/cva/v1n1/editorial.php. Quoting from this editorial:

A few years ago, the host on a well-respected network radio show asked me where we will be--computer-wise, technology-wise, game-wise--in. 100 years. "Good grief," said I, "'one hundred years ago smart people were saying that airships would be used to replace oxcarts for hauling dung. Forecasting is a dangerous and uncertain business. One hundred years is impossible to forecast. Twenty-five isn't much easier."

But maybe we can go out on a limb looking ten years ahead. Programs will use the principles of artificial intelligence. They will converse with you in English and will seem nearly sentient. The action and challenge of a game will automatically adjust to individual player capability. Realistic action (movie quality) will be incorporated into games via video discs, computer animation or a combination of both. Multi-player games with opponents around the world will be commonplace. There will be games to appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

Alh, David H., Editor (1984). Big Computer Games. Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atariarchives.org/bigcomputergames/. The complete book is available on the Web.

Creative Computing (n.d.). Full text of 35 issues. Retrieved 8/15/08: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/.