Digital Memory Keys Lighten Students' Bookbags

Sept. 23, 2005 — -- In this week's "Cybershake," we take a look at a small keychain device that could ease students' burden -- literally. Plus, what really drove the creation of the modern personal computer?

A Backpack Buddy

Millions of students have returned to their regular school-time routine -- getting up early, attending classes, studying hard, socializing with friends. But for some kids, there's a welcome change this fall: the promise of a much lighter school bag.

Eastside Preparatory School in Kirkland, Wash., is one of four schools in the nation that is replacing the physical books students usually need for their classes with virtual ones. And it is doing so with the help of a device that is familiar to many computer-savvy road warriors: a USB flash drive.

Made by SanDisk in Sunnyvale, Calif., the "Cruzer Freedom" drive is about the size of several thick pieces of gum and easily fits on a keyring or backpack zipper. It comes with 256 megabytes of solid-state memory that can store digital music files, computer text and pictures.

But unlike other USB memory devices, the Cruzer Freedom features a proprietary technology called Flash Content Processor. When the device is plugged into a computer's USB port, it can access a special Web site specifically designed for students.

On the site, kids can download digital textbooks, Web pages and notes created by their teachers specifically for their class. Other reference works and coursework tools -- such as a software program that allows the PC to act as a handheld graphing calculator -- can also be accessed and added onto the student's flash drive from the site.

The device is a welcomed tool among students already well-versed in digital technology.

"I haven't seen any calculators that can do all of the stuff that this thing can," says ninth-grader Luke Eden, who lugs around a graphing calculator, a dictionary and a book for English class on his flash drive. "Just plug it in, load it up and you can use it."

Educators are enamored with the tiny device as well.

Teacher Jonathan Briggs says he also puts notes and Web sites on the students' flash drives.

"It's almost like a toy to them to play with it," says Briggs. "So if they can have fun playing with science, that's all the better."

-- Larry Jacobs, ABC News

The Early PC Rebels

The very early days of computing in the United States was dominated by room-filling machines stuffed with hundreds of vacuum tubes and managed by teams of scientists in white lab coats.

But think of the roots of the very first personal computers and what do you see? Nerdy youngsters who built the first toaster-sized boxes in their basements and garages. Or maybe you envision those whiz kids -- some of whom never finished or even attended college -- who created programs that made those boxes powerfully useful.

A massive shift in thinking spurred by the rebellious culture that was being celebrated by the youth in U.S. colleges during the turbulent 1960s, says noted author and technology journalist, John Markoff.

"Creativity was linked pretty directly to the sort of chaos that was around Stanford [University]," says Markoff, author of "What the Doormouse Said: How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer."

"People come up with good ideas when they're sort of pulled out of their day to day, sort of humdrum existence," he says. "Most of the ideas that would sort of become what we know as the modern PC and today's Internet were thought up right around Stanford during that 10- to 15-year period."

As much as young activists rallied together for greater political voice and power, PC pioneers of the time banded together in hopes of bringing computer power to everyone. The most influential was the Homebrew Computer Club, which started in Stanford.

"The Homebrew Computer Club -- which was the basis for many of the first companies in the PC industry including Apple Computer -- was actually started by a draft resister, [the late Fred Moore]," says Markoff. "He really wanted his own PC simply to do his political organizing."

In other words, a rebel with a cause was part of the reason why there was such a revolution in computing history, says Markoff.

-- Larry Jacobs, ABC News

Cybershake is produced for ABC News Radio by Andrea J. Smith.