Two students brought computers to the exam in Alan Dershowitz’s criminal law class. Mid-exam a note was passed to the Dean of Students. The brave computer user who sought no special permission to use a computer—not because they were a hero or rule breaker but because using a computer seemed as obvious as using a calculator in math class—instead of a typewriter was summoned to the Dean’s office. In a follow-up meeting the student was given permission to use a computer while a hearing was scheduled. The primary concern it seemed was the anxiety the computer created for other students with regard to fairness. The hearing was months off.
First the story was written about in the Harvard Law Record. Then the Wall Street Journal picked up the story, March 23, 1982, with the title of the front page story quoting one of the computer users “Will Computer Memories Replace Notes on the Shirt Cuff in Exams?” Then, Time Magazine covered the story:
This was huge news among a tiny set of very interested people, myself included. Computers were new and scary, but the world was optimistic. Time Magazine had yet to announce the computer as “Machine of the Year” (December 1982) but the world was abuzz with the potential of a computer in every home and on every desk. Atari sold twice as many computers as the next leading company, Radio Shack, both more than either Apple (279,000 units) or IBM (240,000.) Literally almost no one had a computer with about 1.8M units sold collectively worldwide since 1977.