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In my Physical Science class we were given the assignment to do a science fair project. I chose to do a project to see whether north or south facing rooms differed in temperature from one another. We discussed all of the problems with using a real house to take measurements and decided that we would have to use a miniature house, like one made out of cardboard.
I talked this over with my father and showed him the thermometers that my science teacher sent home with me. We did a little talking and decided that the possibilities for more problems using a cardboard box were still awfully great, and that there would probably be too much chance for bias in my measurements. My dad was talking with a computer friend about using our VOTEM and a program to measure the temperature when the friend suggested making the little house out of styrofoam insulating sheets and bathtub caulk.
So Dad and I worked together on this project. He typed in John Snakenburg’s program called DATA and made some small changes on it and we borrowed another VOTEM so that we could have two computers working together at the same time, each taking readings Simultaneously. And we used two printers, too.
Our experimental house has what my Dad calls “translucent” white plexiglass windows on each end and is divided down the middle and all sealed up so that no air can enter or leave while it sits outside and so that the rooms are separated, too. It measures about 25″ x 9″ x 7” and you can see how we built it in the diagrams.
We took readings every minute so that from 12:00pm to 1:45 pm we took 100 points of data. We tried to start a little earlier but one computer set-up kept crashing.
I liked using the DATA program because I could see exactly what had happened after my experiment. My Dad showed me how to use the different graphs so we could compare the two rooms. My teacher was impressed, too.
The resulting data showed that the southern room was significantly higher in temperature than the northern room in the middle of the day. It was really surprising how hot it got inside the southern room but the northern room stayed pretty cold. At the time the computers were working, I took temperatures of the outside air and then we made sure that the VOTEMS were accurate with the thermometer.
The outside air never got much above 10 degrees Celsius and the day was partly cloudy and the sun kept coming and going. The southern room got up to 34.397 degrees Celsius. You can see this in the graphs of the southern room because the data keeps going up and down while the northern room just gradually got a little hotter as the day went by. Now here’s my Dad to tell you about the DATA program.
The program we used was written by John Snakenburg and does a fine job on this project. 1 REM is just machine code for the VOTEM and line 7 (variable P) was not needed in this experiment but could be changed to other values and used in the formulas in lines 390, 495, 615 where the computer is plotting stuff on the screen; it might be needed so that out of range numbers do not occur.
A peak value is computed and displayed and you can see each data point taken or let the computer take all 100 points before seeing anything. The program “wraps” the data around on the screen in the first screen presentation (which we have not presented here).
The extremely important part of this program is the ability of the computer to generate lots of different ways of looking at the data, expanding it, viewing just part of the data, and printing all out on the printer. With a bit of ingenuity you can use DATA by hand and not worry about the VOTEM (change the formula in line 315) and have an INPUT statement just before 315 so that you will put a value into V and then into the A(10,10) array.
The computer graphics were created by using VU 3D on the 2068–an excellent addition to your library of educational enhancements for your 2068.
Let me just add that I have heard that the 2068 served as the prototype for the IBM PCJr.; no wonder that the 2068 is so much more computer for your money than the mish-mash of IBM’s latest venture into the deep water of low priced consumer electronics. I’ve even heard that the software for both IBM and TIMEX machines is made in Samarkanda and that is why the packaging is so similar–sleek silver grey for the top-of-the-line at the low end of the spectrum.