[pressgang] Episode 6 - INTERFACE

[Katie Bird]

Thanks for the great review, Laura. I agree with a lot in it
(especially relating to the round of applause at the end), but do
wonder about your question about the likelihood of a school having a
modem in 1989. I would have thought that if this seemed implausible
this would have been raised more at the time – after all, presumably
Steven Moffat knew schools very well, having worked in them. As others
have mentioned, the internet has been around for longer than its
current form and educational institutions (admittedly more likely
universities) were involved in it from early on. 

	It does dovetail into my own story about “ye olde Internet”. When
I was in primary school (so definitely pre-1992 when I moved on to
high school), I can recall having a class with a teacher where we were
introduced to the concept of the then “internet” (for want of a
better word – he would likely have called it something else and it
may well have been the pre-internet, given that it was only messaging
involved). 

	Every student in the class was then given the name of someone in a
school in (from memory) North America and we then each had the
opportunity to write out a couple of lines of a message that would
then be sent through to the other class. A couple of days later we got
our responses – they had all been sent in one message, as
everyone’s messages were on short pieces of paper that had been cut
out from a long sheet. At the time it was extremely exciting – the
idea you could get a response from overseas so quickly! – whereas it
certainly sounds very dated and slow now. But the whole experience
always reminds me a lot of the Interface episode in that it was a
similar kind of introduction to sending messages online and how it was
all very much a group experience (though without a mystery to solve). 

	If I now look at the history of the internet in Australia I’m not
sure how common the above experience would have been for school
children in that period - and I can see that it may simply have been a
passion project for that particular teacher. And I certainly do not
remember the details for how he sent the messages through – he may
well have had a contact at a university to facilitate it – though
the concept about linking schools across the world was clear.  But
what it did mean that by the time I started watching PG circa 1992,
the concepts of sending messages online didn't seem unusual from a
school perspective. But perhaps others who watched PG at the time it
was released had a different experience.

Katie

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 laura.nunn at gmail.com "Press Gang Mailing List"
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Re: [pressgang] Episode 6 - INTERFACE

	The computer is duly won and installed with a modem (a modem, folks!
In 1989!) and then the proper narrative starts in earnest. And oh boy,
is there an awful lot of earnest.

	Let’s test out this modem then. Danny (clearly because every other
main character was visiting their aunt in Sherrington that day) and
Miss Hessope/Jessope (I assume it’s double-barrelled) are in the
school office, sending wind-up messages to Lynda. There is no
explanation as to why the school needs a computer with a modem in
1989. I think we can just assume Mr Winters has an ASCII porn fetish.
He looks the type.

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