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LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

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Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#11

Post by MenhirMike »

esafak wrote: post #4

This is what I mean when I say that the older generation knew their computers. Middle schoolers writing assembly was not extraordinary.

Typing in listings from magazines every month and then debugging stuff that didn't work to figure out if I mistyped it or if the magazine made a mistake was such a fantastic learning experience!

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#13

Post by anonzzzies »

When I was that age I tried to copy games; first in Basic and then in hybrid Basic/ASM (data 3e,00,cd,...; I never actually used an assembler). Like the OP, also on a MSX. I wanted to know how they worked ; I always found it boring playing them (still find it boring), but how they work under the hood always was interesting to me. It's also how I learned about hardware; I wanted to expand my machine so started meeting up with (to me extremely old) guys who knew how everything worked. The MSX I had came with schematics in the box, so that was fun.

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#14

Post by palad1n »

MenhirMike wrote: post #11
esafak wrote: post #4

This is what I mean when I say that the older generation knew their computers. Middle schoolers writing assembly was not extraordinary.

Typing in listings from magazines every month and then debugging stuff that didn't work to figure out if I mistyped it or if the magazine made a mistake was such a fantastic learning experience!

Child of the 80s here. I won a couple of those back when. I got one published by Nibble magazine (Apple ][+ assembly) and one in BASIC got me a free disk at Beagle Bros. I loved 6502 assembly language.

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#15

Post by darkwater »

esafak wrote: post #4

This is what I mean when I say that the older generation knew their computers. Middle schoolers writing assembly was not extraordinary.

Well, depending on which population of middle schoolers you base on. The whole population? Yes it was extraordinary. The ones owning a micro-computer? There it was more common indeed.

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#16

Post by dbrueck »

palad1n wrote: post #14
MenhirMike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typing in listings from magazines every month and then debugging stuff that didn't work to figure out if I mistyped it or if the magazine made a mistake was such a fantastic learning experience!

Child of the 80s here. I won a couple of those back when. I got one published by Nibble magazine (Apple ][+ assembly) and one in BASIC got me a free disk at Beagle Bros. I loved 6502 assembly language.

Your comment was a fun trip down memory lane. I'd read Nibble cover to cover, and especially scrutinize Beagle Bros advertisements because of the little one liner programs they'd often include. Good times!

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#17

Post by jhbadger »

Swizec wrote: post #7
kazinator wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it was, though.

As a middle schooler blindly copypasting assembly to make the mouse work in my Turbo Pascal programs, can confirm that this was extremely rare in the mid 90’s. Just having a computer at home was rare enough, the fact that you were into programming? There were like 5 of us seriously into it in the whole school of about 1000 pupils. Even now there are only about 27 million professional software engineers[1] in the worl…

I think it was more common in the 1980s for amateur programmers (including young people as I was then) to know assembly than it was in the 1990s and later for several reasons. First of all there was the need for it -- while there were compilers you could run on 8-bits, the limited memory space meant that the compiler often ended up taking too much of the memory you needed for your program, and so when people realized that BASIC was too slow/limited for what they wanted to write, assembly language was the obvious alternative. Secondly, the assembly languages of 8-bits was generally 6502 or Z80. These are relatively simple processors and learning these architectures (as I did myself) wasn't that hard. Once x86 machines took over in the 1990s, assembly because less attractive both because compilers were more practical because of larger memory and because x86 assembly is frankly a nightmare.

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#19

Post by nanochess »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #9

"but it wasn't so good for teaching programming because no home computer came with Logo, it was expensive" 1. My 8bit Amstrad CPC464 (1984) with disc drive came with LOGO [0] 2. I've used LOGO to teach programming (and C, Python, Java) and LOGO is easily the best (Scratch). [0] https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/System_Disk#CPC464_.28DDI-1... https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Dr._Logo

Cool! I've added a mention of this to the article.

Re: LOCS: Language developed at age 9 in Z80 machine code (1988)

#20

Post by KingOfCoders »

nanochess wrote: post #19
KingOfCoders wrote: post #9

"but it wasn't so good for teaching programming because no home computer came with Logo, it was expensive" 1. My 8bit Amstrad CPC464 (1984) with disc drive came with LOGO [0] 2. I've used LOGO to teach programming (and C, Python, Java) and LOGO is easily the best (Scratch). [0] https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/System_Disk#CPC464_.28DDI-1... https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Dr._Logo

Cool! I've added a mention of this to the article.

Cool!
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