Wednesday, March 5, 1986/The Battalion/Page 5
Token or d
•und niovi
often will
P-
est release
H'cun wire;
or existim
testy disc
Computer program designed to reduce study time
E. MAT-
?stos Id
■rsistedim!
taps have
pe, accord
ATHERINE
ZINGER
Reporter
puters seem to have come
facets of life in the 20th cen-
ven into studying,
ob Prall of College Station has
■ed a computer disc, which can
Id free to help students study,
le said he decided to design a
Km to help his son study when
.yaflen no-pass, no-play law threatened
>ipe, the ee |, [ns son from playing football
loreitis Consolidated High School.
’ lc - pondered what I could do as a
n■ to help my son with his
-“fwork,” Prall said.
' s n 0Wf jarted as a small project. But
or hi f Hr e S ot * nvo * vec l- Prall said the
't kept growing.
E ul
said he designed a disc that
be run without the user having
computer knowledge.
Rset up so a person can type in
mons or notes from any subject
lions of lth en be teste d ov er t j ie material.
idea behind it is like the
■aid theory,” Prall said. “Repe-
means learning.”
uestions can be scrambled in
law mar
first odd
indedifik lifferent orders and presented
gettingai o the person for answering.
e answers are graded on a scale
to five — one meaning no in-
five cis®tion was known and five
in Januan ing all knowledge pertaining to
sed beans testion was known.
;ty seat. e program calculates the aver-
:ore and stores it on a progress
lis allows the person to see im-
|ments in learning.
it only can you study the
terial, but you can learn your own
j,” Prall said.
ir example, Prall said, a student
■tnct asiho
n pie, Ned
persons i
belt oru
“The idea behind it is like
the flashcard theory. Rep
etition means learning. ”
— Bob Prall, designer of a
computer disc that stu
dents can use free of
charge.
can learn how many times he needs
to go over material in order to learn
it.
It gives the student a chance to re
peat material without repeating
things already learned, he said.
“That’s what all college students
spend their time doing, isn’t it —
going over material they don’t need
to?” Prall asked.
If a person decides to filter out
questions that are scored four or bet
ter, the system will take this into ac
count in the average scoring.
Therefore, progress is based on
the same scale.
Prall said his son, 15, wanted to
learn so that he could beat his pre
vious score.
He said his son could see the pro
gress and was motivated to learn
more.
Prall said his son has cut down on
his learning time by 35 to 40 per
cent.
“It is a much Quicker way to learn
— because you don’t have to repeat
what you already know — and it has
the flashcard effect,” Prall said.
Prall said he thinks the disc is a
great learning device.
lust from watching; his
habits improve, he said h<
disc can help others.
son’s study
he knows the
“The two best things about the
system are that the person can see
his own progress, and it’s free,” Prall
said.
The disc is available at the Micro
Center located in the Memorial Stu
dent Center.
It costs nothing to run the disc
and anyone wishing to copy the disc
— even if he plans to use it for per
sonal profit — can do so.
Prall said he hopes students will
make discs of basic class notes to
study for certain subjects.
One disc could include basic rules
for learning a foreign language
“One thing I want to stress
is that a person never has
to register or pay for any
thing to get the benefits of
the disc. ”
— Bob Prall.
along with vocabulary, for example.
Once the disc is designed and the
E erson wishes to add it to Prall’s col-
rction, that person must register
with Prall.
The one-time registration fee is
$27.50. Additional discs can be filed
for $5.
Anyone who has registered is eli
gible to purchase other discs and has
access to a catalog of available discs.
Prall said the first students to send
in basic things like language discs are
almost sure to make a profit.
The disc sent to Prall is sold to
others.
The profits are split between Prall
and the disc designer with the de
signer receiving 40 percent and Prall
60 percent, which helps cover over
head, including the maintaining of
the catalog and postage.
Prall said he makes a minimal
amount on each disc.
Most of his profit is made from
people registering.
“One thing I want to stress,” Prall
said, “is that a person never has to
register or pay for anything to get
the benefits of the disc.”
A person can copy a disc for the
price of a blank disc. Students even
tually will trade class notes and discs
more than they now trade old tests,
Prall said.
Prall said he is hoping people will
send in discs and that he soon will
have thousands of them on file.
People will register so they can re
ceive catalogs and order specific
discs.
Prall said he believes professors
will like the discs because they can
put basic notes on them to supple
ment lectures.
“I bet within two years there will
be a good set of class notes on almost
every subject on disc available to all
students,” Prall said.
Prall said that it is much easier
and more economical to trade discs
than handwritten notes.
For $2.50 a disc can be purchased
and within two minutes 133 pages of
notes can be copied.
Prall said he doesn’t know
whether he will make a profit.
That remains to be seen.
Prall said even if he doesn’t make
a big profit he feels good knowing
he’s helped someone and he’s
helped his country through educa
tion.
“I’m not bothered by someone us
ing the disc and never registering,”
he said, “but I would be unhappy if
they don’t give it away.”
ice beat
(he following incidents were
Drted to the Texas A&M Uni-
sity Police Department
’ Mondays
EMEANOR THEFT:
' $100 bills were stolen
>ack in the Civil £ngi-
t , _ .r keg, tap and
was stolen from the
1978 Chevrolet pickup
ed in PA 24.
bicycles were stolen
ARY OF A HAB1TA-
Jt $120 was stolen from
ee separate rooms in Puryear
Two pistols were stolen from
:
INAL TRESPASS.
‘ lent in Aston Hall re-
1 a man entered his
m and asked for money to buy
' drink. When the resident
d to give the man money,
an attempted to grab
holder, but the resident
to grab it first. The man
r wrest the change holder
y, but the resident threw it
a bed. The man then took
Vange holder and walked
: room. The man returned
mge holder with 50 cents
t. The resident did not
Federal report: Delta crew
could have avoided crash
Associated Press
DALLAS — Federal investigators believe the crew of
a Delta Air Lines jet that crashed near the Dallas-Fort
Worth International Airport on Aug. 2 could have
aborted the ill-fated landing, but waited too long to try,
the Dallas Times Herald reported Tuesday.
The reports say the crew of Delta Flight 191, en
route to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport from
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., had clues a storm in its path was
severe, according to the newspaper.
The newspaper, in a copyright story, said internal re
ports were completed in the past two weeks by leaders
of the National Transportation Safety Board teams as
signed to assess factors in the crash, in which 137 peo
ple were killed.
The agency’s final conclusions about the probable
cause will be detailed in the final report, due in April or
May, a board spokesman said.
Delta officials said the pilots of the L-1011 jumbo jet
had no way of knowing they were flying into the thun
derstorm microburst and could not escape once they
were in the powerful downdraft of air.
T. Theodore Fujita, a University of Chicago meteo
rologist who studied the crash with Delta’s help, said the
type of storm cloud the Delta crew saw is often innoc
uous and can be entirely misleading to pilots.
“The Delta 191 microburst was accompanied by the
most complicated winds analyzed by the author since . .
. the Eastern 66 accident at JFK (airport in New York)
on June 24, 1975,” Fujita’s study said.
The microburst developed at least three “vortex
rings,” or tornado-like eddies of wind that began as the
jet of air descended to the ground and began to spread
out, the study said.
Scientists have likened a microburst to a strong jet of
water squirted from a garden hose onto the ground.
Flight recorders aboard the jet indicated the co-pilot
saw lightning ahead at 6:04 p.m.
One minute later, the plane encountered wind shifts
and heavy rain as it entered the microburst.
Officials said the crew, after entering the microburst
shaft at 6:05 p.m., could have aborted the landing and
veered out of the storm up to 20 seconds before impact.
The captain did not give the order to abort the land
ing until about seven seconds before impact, after the
airplane entered a severe vortex ring on the micro
burst’s edge, the newspaper said.
Officials said escape would have been impossible at
that point.
Weather information the crew received did not men
tion the thunderstorm and gave wind speeds of 5 knots
with gusts up to 15 knots.
“At the present time, a pilot has no equipment avail
able to him to ascertain the exact nature of the winds
until he flies into a microburst,” Fujita said in his study.
Sources told the newspaper that the internal reports
are not critical of air traffic controllers’ actions in the
mishap, but do cite the fact that two of three weather
observers were away from their posts when the storm
was forming.
lapanese construction firm breaks ground in Austin
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Officials of the first
anese-based firm to develop a
1 estate project in Austin say they
I be recruiting Japanese business
ants to help fill a planned $6.3
lion office building.
A delegation of officials from To-
i-headquartered Sumitomo Con-
uction Co. and members of the
Austin Chamber of Commerce
broke ground for the building Mon
day.
The five-story Town Lake Center
is being constructed on a 2.4 acre
tract south of downtown Austin. It is
expected to be completed in one
year.
Owners of the building are Sumi-
ken Real Estate Co., a Sumitomo
subsidiary, and Sumico Devel
opment, a subsidiary of Belco Equi
ties of California.
Sumiken chairman Takesada
Hori said the Japanese developer is
optimistic about the site, which is
across the street from the Palmer
Municipal Auditorium. Hori said his
company is considering doing dif
ferent kinds of projects in Austin
over the next few years.
“This is the first investment,”
Hori said. “We want to expand here
into land development and housing
if it is feasible. We do all kinds of
business.”
Sumitomo executives said they do
not have formal agreements from
Japanese companies to lease space in
the new building, but plan to lease
space to Japanese companies coming
to Austin and to American tenants.
The Society for
Entrepreneurship
and New Ventures
Will have panel discussion meeting on the
Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs
Convention: What we learned
7 pm
301 Rudder
March 5
GUITAR STRINGS
A Factory Rep From Takamine
Will Be In The Store This Friday
March 7. He will give you a
FREE set of Strings and install
them for you FREE also.
KEyboARd
Center
Inc.
Strictly limited to
quantities on hand,
and to the hours of 3:00-6:00.
POST OAK MALL
A -.Wl
ALL YOU CAN E/VT!
IN/apoletana & Siciliana Pizza
00 P er
Person
Monday
thru
Thursday
FREE DELIVERY
846-0379
Hours:
Sun-Thurs 1 1 a.m.-2 a.m.
Sat & Sun 11 a.m.-3 a.m.
405 W. University
at Northgate
Sell Yourself
Battalion Personals
845-2611
\
So you don't have to walk the streets
HORT
N
ASH?
advertise
with
the Battalion
classified ads
845-2611
we won't
sell you
short
Who is the only AGGIE running
for governor?
ANDREW BRISCOE
Democratic Candidate for Governor
Andrew Briscoe
8:00 p.m.
410 Rudder
This program is presented for educational purposes
and does not consitute an endorsement for any speaker.
March 5