DART vs. COMPAQ and Beyond


The COMPAQ portable PC from the early 1980s physically resembled Cardinal's DART programmed instruction machine from the early 1970s.

It had a small rectangular screen and came in a hardshell. Its dimensions and 'look' were similar.

The COMPAQ keyboard locked shut at the base, making it an awkward and ugly suitcase. This "portable" item weighed close to 30 pounds.

It was like lugging around a sewing machine.

DART also had a case, but the machine wasn't meant to be mobile. Its case was for extended travel only.

The COMPAQ ran on DOS, and had huge floppy drives. Even with input capability, the machine didn't really do much, in practical terms.

You could sit around and type in DOS commands all night long, boring yourself to tears, by asking the machine what time it was, or day, or what was in the directory.

Or you could simply curse at it:

C: \> dir:
C: \> date
C: \> F U
!!

For a while, COMPAQ sold their machine with a gimmicky DOS program that enabled "conversation" between its user and the system. I can't recall the name of it (it was a "she" name, like some friendly chick shrink or something). COMPAQ promoted it as artificial intelligence. Actually it was little more than BASIC code used to generate random responses to a preset table of queries, trusting the law of averages to make it seem like the system's brain was providing a cogent response to a comment or question.

The DOS program was little better than the fortune-telling 8-Ball we used to play with as kids. You asked a question and it provided a random answer when you looked at its bottom and read the plastic indicator floating in a small sea of glycerin.

All in all, even with the addition of a text processor - primitive WordStar - the COMPAQ was junk. It didn't respond very well to users' needs, it wasn't interactive, and it didn't teach anyone much of anything. It didn't do much, period.

Except maybe instruct us to hold our cash for the next new and improved generation of PCs.

Cardinal's DART machine hardware had no operating system, of course. It was basically a filmstrip projector and audio tape player with capabilities to advance, stop, and replay on command.

With Cardinal's piggy-back cartridge "instructional unit" inserted (the 'software' or teaching program itself), the 1973 DART system was actually smarter, more versatile, and way more useful than a 1983 COMPAQ could ever hope to be.


Cardinal's system surpassed the other teaching machine klunkers (on left) of its era.

(None of our equipment or people looked as goofy, either.)

What we were doing was something very much like early CBT. Same methodology, different platform.

We were trail-blazing and largely unaware.

In its core concept, Cardinal espoused B.F. Skinner's (picture below) behavior modification theories. Skinner's book was required reading for new hires. It was kind of scary almost fascist-sounding stuff, and some of us thought it best not to over think it.

As it turned out -- putting aside Skinner and all attendant ISD methodology -- it was Cardinal's DART machine itself that was the real genius of Big Daddy's vision.

But the timing wasn't there, nor the buying customers, nor the economy and so forth. Maybe we could have done some things better, but mostly it was misfortune in the market place that did Cardinal in.

It's too bad. There was enough talent in our building to have made a real go at it. Maybe we could've even made all those millions of dollars that Big Daddy and the execs promised.

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