Mac Mouse Magic for Mathematical Memories
A few of us met the Macintosh when it was launched in 1984, and I can still remember a sample being on trial at my first school. Sitting apologetically in the corner of the main staffroom, it was a rather odd looking, all-in-one computer with a strange device attached called a “mouse”. Perhaps that is why it was in the corner, near the wall? In some ways it was a toy and not really worth taking that seriously, especially when we had TRS80’s to program in the Maths Department. The TRS80’s were for serious Maths! In fact, I recall that the Maths teachers avoided the Macintosh, while the Art teachers flocked to it like fireflies to a colored lantern. I do remember seeing rather elegant looking fonts on the Macintosh but not much that was of use for me as a Mathematics teacher. The Macintosh included the official Guided Tour of Macintosh – which came as a floppy disk and cassette of synced audio instructions. And to teach users what to do with that weird thing called a mouse, a whole section was devoted to “MOUSING AROUND”. Here is one of the tutorials:
Nowadays, of course, Mac Math users have a great little built in tool called “Grapher”. This is found in the Utilities folder and is a powerful tool for 2D and 3D graphing, and it makes the addition of text a breeze as well:
For an excellent tutorial on using Grapher, click here.
(H3 disclaimer: H3 has no shares in Apple or any other company, and uses a Windows PC reluctantly during work hours, and a MacBook Pro for writing this blog)
