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Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

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Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#21

Post by darrenf »

spzb wrote: post #2

There's a lot of us mid-forties IT staff who owe our careers to the BBC Micro and accompanying TV programmes. It would come as a huge surprise to today's kids but my school had just one computer (a BBC Micro, of course) which was wheeled on a trolley from one classroom to the next. We'd all take turns, usually in groups of three or four, to run whatever educational game was related to the work we were doing (usually…

My high school (years 1987-90) was crazily well equipped – we actually had two rooms full of BBC Micros and gasp an Archimedes. What's more, they were networked so we could chat to each other ... in between political simulation games. Thought it was called "Prime", but perhaps it was Great Britain Ltd: http://bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?search=Simulation+%28Politic...

I don't recall actually having classes there so perhaps I only used them at lunch hours. We did also have a BBC Micro-on-a-trolley in my form room though, and I do remember vaguely impressing my classmates by "hacking" some BASIC Lunar Lander game to start with -1 lives, ensuring the "decrement, check against zero" game over condition would never trip. Though in reality that just gave some of the kids licence to never relinquish control, since their game never finished.

Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#22

Post by timthorn »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #10
rahimnathwani wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're about the same age. My primary school also had a BBC Micro on a trolley. We didn't get to use it much, I guess because our teacher wasn't interested in it. When I was ~10, my parents spent £129.99 (a lot of money for them at the time) to buy me an Acorn Electron (a cut down version of the BBC Micro). One thing that was frustrating for me at the time is that I had no one to answer questions. For example, I was w…

Writing a paper letter to Teletext and get an answer, love it. The internet and the web has som serious warts, but it is also amazing.

And if you were really into Teletext (and had enough cash) you could get an adaptor to download software OTA: http://www.heyrick.co.uk/software/ttx/ttxouse.html

Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#23

Post by Udo »

wffurr wrote: post #20
Udo wrote: post #16

When a friend attempted to teach basic programming to his kids, I realized we're in trouble (for some definition of trouble, see below). First of all, the article is right in opining that the pathways to computer literacy in general, and programming in particular, are not really all that accessible anymore. The problem becomes even worse due to the sheer number of "teaching" tools available. My friend had trouble eve…

The short answer to "why do I need this" is that there a lot of good paying jobs in using programs to manipulate data, from software engineering to doing analysis in Excel. Maybe those kids are too young for that to be relevant, but that's also the best time to start learning.

> there a lot of good paying jobs in using programs to manipulate data

There are even better-paying jobs in managing those people who are using programs to manipulate data.

> Maybe those kids are too young for that to be relevant, but that's also the best time to start learning.

They're 10 and 13, not too young in my opinion to make a judgement call about what is of interest to them. I agree it's a good time to start learning, but my point is that it's probably not a useful subject to force upon people.

Realistically, there will always be kids who feel intrinsically drawn towards computing. They'll learn it regardless. The question is what we do with the rest. Having been a programmer for more than 30 years, I'm hesitant to argue in favor of making more people embark on a career that involves programming than strictly necessary.

Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#26

Post by camjw1123 »

pjc50 wrote: post #4

The computer literacy project was basically the last UK government attempt at doing industrial policy. It was a huge success, so they gave up on it and have abandoned industrial policy to market forces and financialisation. We have gone from that to "eff business". https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2019-02-14b.1068....

I think this is a bit harsh, the current industrial strategy is pretty decent (https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/the-uks-industr...), whether they will deliver on this remains to be seen but it's not like they aren't thinking about industrial policy.

Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#28

Post by rikkus »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #5
spzb wrote: post #2

There's a lot of us mid-forties IT staff who owe our careers to the BBC Micro and accompanying TV programmes. It would come as a huge surprise to today's kids but my school had just one computer (a BBC Micro, of course) which was wheeled on a trolley from one classroom to the next. We'd all take turns, usually in groups of three or four, to run whatever educational game was related to the work we were doing (usually…

We're about the same age. My primary school also had a BBC Micro on a trolley. We didn't get to use it much, I guess because our teacher wasn't interested in it. When I was ~10, my parents spent £129.99 (a lot of money for them at the time) to buy me an Acorn Electron (a cut down version of the BBC Micro). One thing that was frustrating for me at the time is that I had no one to answer questions. For example, I was w…

Same issue for me on the questions. I could see from the Spectrum 48k manual that there was more that could be done than writing plain BASIC but didn’t know how to find out more. I didn’t have any idea what all those POKES I saw in others’ code (typed in from magazines) were doing.

Same issue when I got a BBC B. No reference beyond the simple user guide, and I couldn’t find anything out about other books that might be available by asking at the library, because they didn’t understand what I was asking about.

Getting onto the Internet in 1994 made a huge difference!

Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#29

Post by CmdrKrool »

parenthesis wrote: post #18
spzb wrote: post #2

There's a lot of us mid-forties IT staff who owe our careers to the BBC Micro and accompanying TV programmes. It would come as a huge surprise to today's kids but my school had just one computer (a BBC Micro, of course) which was wheeled on a trolley from one classroom to the next. We'd all take turns, usually in groups of three or four, to run whatever educational game was related to the work we were doing (usually…

Yes! The BBC Micro came out just before I started primary school. Initially our school (200-300 pupils) had one , on a trolley, with a concept keyboard too ( http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/8bitadd/Concept.html ). By the time I left primary school, we had three or four! In primary one, I remember some very simple `cat and mouse' game. Later on, a text adventure game, possibly something to do with a frog. And then Granny'…

Love that people are repeating the detail about the trolley. I too remember that almost as vividly as the computer itself :)

Never saw a Concept Keyboard though, it looks both forward thinking and antiquated (reminiscent of the ZX81). But as it happens I read about an Amiga version of this keyboard just the other day. It was expensive: https://archive.org/details/amigaformatmagazine-026/page/n13...

Re: Codecademy vs. the BBC Micro

#30

Post by djhworld »

I'm reading "But How Do It Know" right now and programming a software version of the computer the book is describing. It's fun and gets you to learn about NAND gates and other things without intimidating electronic engineering knowledge (I don't have much of a background here)

I've implemented a the memory module (256 bytes!) the ALU and am just moving into the CPU section now. The book builds up from creating a "bit" out of a few NAND gates, onto registers, the data bus etc

It's actually been a very rewarding little project, yes it's far removed from x86 and modern systems but I think the principles are there to build knowledge on.

People might say what's the point, your day job is gluing libraries together to run websites and stuff who cares about hardware, but I think that's a shame because from what I can tell it's not that complicated and makes what is going on under the hood a little easier to reason about, even if you don't understand the complexities of modern processors

I'm looking forward to getting my little computer to run toy programs :)

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