Looking for stories of General Authority Use of LDS Apps

[scgallafent]

But there are at least three things a digital device in my hand cannot do: 1) allow me to look quickly from one verse to another, comparing the wording and context in careful examination of the writ

I understand #1, and hope one day they'll add to the Gospel Library the requested feature of viewing two content items side by side. (When I'm really desperate for this, I use two devices side by side.)

You can't view side by side, but you can have multiple content windows open and quickly switch between them. On Android, the icon looks like two boxes, one on top of the other.

[lmcguire]

@sgallafent - Yes. And I've even read bits and pieces right off that screen showing the list of windows (can't generally read it all cuz the right edge gets chopped off), but that's not as cool as side-by-side would be.

Liz

[russellhltn]

I used to generate the ward directory from IBM 80-column punched cards. The new member gave me their information, I punched the card and inserted it into the deck. During the week I ran two copies of the updated directory, one for the new family and one for the bishop, on an IBM System 370 mainframe.

I did punch cards. Only one class, but I did them.

[drepouille]

I used to generate the ward directory from IBM 80-column punched cards. The new member gave me their information, I punched the card and inserted it into the deck. During the week I ran two copies of the updated directory, one for the new family and one for the bishop, on an IBM System 370 mainframe.

Did you store membership data in the cloud?

I tried to write a membership data and ward directory program on my Radio Shack Color Computer in 1984, but never got it working. The output didn't look very good on a 9-pin dot-matrix printer anyway.

[lajackson]

Did you store membership data in the cloud?

Never! (Unless you count the cards being stored in the box in my closet at home.) It was just a deck of data cards that I ran through the IBM card reader and sent to the printer every week, much akin to a printer setting Linotype one whole line at a time. (I once personally watched a Linotype operator set a page for the morning paper. I guess I'm really dating myself now.)

By the time I bought my own Kaypro II and an Okidata Microline 91 printer, the Church was mailing out quarterly ward directories that we used instead. My wife always referred to the computer and printer as "a very expensive typewriter". The folks with the 8 and 16K computers laughed at me because I had splurged on a 64K memory computer. Two years later they were laughing at me because I still had it, and they were deciding between 256 and 512K models. Those are K's, not M's or G's, for you youngsters.

I was very surprised the first time I saw someone use an electronic device to give a talk in sacrament meeting. It was a youth speaker. I thought he was carrying his scriptures (a paperback triple, actually) when he walked up to the stand, but it was an iPad. He laid it on the pulpit, gave his talk as if he had written it out on paper, and then quietly closed it and returned to his seat. Nothing flashy or showy. Most of the members didn't even notice. And it was a good talk, too.

The next time I saw it happen was by a general authority at a stake conference leadership meeting.

I had to explain to one of my children this week how the keys would jam on a typewriter if you typed too fast, and what a blessing it was when the IBM Selectric came out, a marvel of engineering. We've come a long way.