Word: orphans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...grim kind of camaraderie is evident among owners of orphaned computers. Those who cannot afford to scrap their machines or donate them to schools as tax deductions often turn to fellow users for comfort and support. As a result, hundreds of orphan-user groups have sprung up across the U.S., holding meetings in company cafeterias, community centers, classrooms and dens. Members swap tips on software, sources for ever scarcer accessories, and techniques for getting the most out of their discontinued machines...
...orphan computers end up in the closet because people don't know what to do with them," says Susan Mahoney, who directs a Timex Sinclair User Group out of her home in Waterbury, Conn. Her 600-member organization, one of 100 such U.S. chapters devoted to Timex alone, helps bring those computers back out of the closet. The Timex groups exchange newsletters, sponsor joint meetings and cooperate in finding spare parts...
Other organizations are more short lived. Membership in clubs sponsored by the Boston Computer Society often soars when a product is discontinued, only to wane as members move on to bigger and better machines. Says President Jonathan Rothanburg: "After a few years, the groups that form around an orphan computer pretty much disappear...
...contributors will help put something--something that wouldn't have been there otherwise--under the tree for kids like 3-year-old Susan whose father dead in September and lost all her toys when her welfare mother's apartment burned up last month, and orphan Mary Jo, whose father deserted her when she was born and whose drug addict mother left four years...
...PRESS PACKET for the movie opens with the lines "For how many years did we gaze into the night sky, wondering 'Are we indeed alone? Is man nothing more than an accident in the Universe, an orphan race lost forever in the void of space?'" This movie hardly seems capable of answering such profound questions. It is too stereotypical and too simplistic to address effectively these philosophical perplexities. The few hours go by pleasantly enough, and there are some suspenseful moments that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but don't expect anything like...