Are dive computers making bad divers?

[Searcaigh]

my Commodore 64

Did you have a housing for it back then

 

[Stoo]

Idiotized? I don't think so. It's just evolution. Newer divers likely don't know how to clear a two-hose regulator either, and they seem to get by.

I think it's important to understand the concepts behind a decompression obligation and so on, as well the risks involved in ignoring them, but the reality is most computers greatly enhance diving. When I was working in the Caribbean long before computers, we would do three dives a day, on tables, and in hindsight, I know that I literally wasted months of dive time, only because of the dang tables.

Having said that, complete reliance on a battery-operated gizmo puts a diver at risk if that device fails. To that end, I have always felt that computers should be sold in pairs... primary and backup. Most tech dives are done with redundant everything, including computers, and also tables. Most rec dives, in the event of failure of a computer, can just be ended with the diver surfacing.

 

[rongoodman]

Computers are great but the knowledge must be there first.

Where do you suppose those dive tables came from in the first place? The computers involved might have filled a small room and been running FORTRAN, but they were otherwise no different than the ones on your sons' wrists.

 

[BlueTrin]

Is it that bad to be computer dependent when you are doing NDL dives and you can buy a Nitrox computer with dive planning second hand for less than £100?

If you understand the concepts and ideas behind the planning, whether you do it via a table or a dive planing software/computer, does it matter?

I never used dive tables - never learned anything about them. But I did learn COBOL in college. Should I start writing code instead of using this cool internet thing and software packages that do it all for me?

COBOL had a bit of a comeback recently

COBOL Language: Call It A Comeback?

Interest has spiked lately because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

www.forbes.com

Maybe if you had written that COBOL code, you could have gotten some of these lucrative contracts?

 

[2stroketony]

You are correct on the dive profile not matching. But my point is the computer is great as long as they understand what is going on in the computer and once they can use the be tables then they can use the computer which is much more exacting.
Not bashing computers but re enforcing their ability to dive without.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I certainly haven't read all posts going back to 2015. I will say though with certainty, bad instructors create bad divers. It isn't the dive computer.

 

[dmaziuk]

I learned assembly language for my Commodore 64. Who needs a compiler?

And I had to bang rocks to make ones and zeros, but what came out is speculative execution over predicted branches of a super-pipeline through 3 levels of cache.

 

[BRT]

You are correct on the dive profile not matching. But my point is the computer is great as long as they understand what is going on in the computer and once they can use the be tables then they can use the computer which is much more exacting.
Not bashing computers but re enforcing their ability to dive without.

You are not going to successfully dive with any operator we have dove with in Cozumel while following tables.

 

[Esprise Me]

I have always felt that computers should be sold in pairs... primary and backup.

That's an interesting idea. One minor downside I discovered diving with two computers on a liveaboard is that it meant one more buckle to do and undo five times a day. It's the kind of thing that makes it very tempting to just start leaving the second one behind, because what are the odds. But then if you end up needing it, it won't have all your previous dive info. If computers came in pairs as a rule, I imagine they might come in some type of bracket to either strap them both on your wrist side by side with one strap, or to have them on two sides of the same console.

I'm a little skeptical that divers in the analog days were as attentive to their instruments and tables as some claim or imply. It would be interesting to travel back in time and secretly attach some computers to their gear, then compare the data with their logs.

 

[Akimbo]

One minor downside I discovered diving with two computers on a liveaboard is that it meant one more buckle to do and undo five times a day.

You can strap a spare PDC to a harness or keep it in a BC pocket for most NDL liveaboard diving. The backup is there in case one dies so you don't have to wait 24 hours to dive again — a rule that most liveaboards enforce when your only computer fails.

Of course having them both in view and easily compared is a good idea for more advanced technical dives, which argues in favor of identical PDCs or at least identical algorithms.