Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
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Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
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Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#2There is one more important thing here: the 8 bit computer immediately invited you to start coding. The barrier to entry was incredibly low to the point of nonexistent. Compare this to a laptop today or even worse a tablet.
I very strongly believe that perpetuating a "code me!" mindset vs the "consume me!" mindset has really big consequences. The ability to make your computer do something that you can do something with, that the kind of game you bought with your computer is something you could attain as well (which is not necessarily true -- some of those games were incredible feats of programming but still the illusion was there) is completely, absolutely missing today.
And the consequence is: you get (at least the illusion of) the possibility that you yourself can create something that is easily spread worldwide. The HN readers will argue the huge audience of tablets makes up for this but the problem is -- most people will never even think they can do it. That's the problem: did your iPad came with a manual for a programming language? I didn't think so.
Prorgam or be programmed. http://www.rushkoff.com/program-or-be-programmed/
Kids Can't Use Computers http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-comput... (I know there is a lot of controversy about this article but it does have valid points.)
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#3I remember when I used my ZX Spectrum to study multiplication tables with a program that I made on Basic that show me the tables and then ask me random multiplications of a table. Funny times...
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#4To me a huge loss from that time is that you could still completely understand what your computer was doing and what the software running on it was. Bloat has solidly killed that possibility, you could not even understand all the code on your phone these days if you wanted to, let alone your desktop machine.
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#5To me a huge loss from that time is that you could still completely understand what your computer was doing and what the software running on it was. Bloat has solidly killed that possibility, you could not even understand all the code on your phone these days if you wanted to, let alone your desktop machine.
Nowadays a phone and a desktop computer are at about the same level of complexity in terms of code.
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#6There is one more important thing here: the 8 bit computer immediately invited you to start coding. The barrier to entry was incredibly low to the point of nonexistent. Compare this to a laptop today or even worse a tablet. I very strongly believe that perpetuating a "code me!" mindset vs the "consume me!" mindset has really big consequences. The ability to make your computer do something that you can do something wi…
Also see "Why Johnny can't code" by David Brin: http://www.salon.com/2006/09/14/basic_2/
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#7This has something of the Smalltalk image-based approach (and the author might enjoy using a Smalltalk development environment). IMO the costs outweigh the gains - it's worth decoupling programming a computer from using it. When source code is just text files, you can manipulate it with lots of powerful tools; even better, you can use tools from different languages whose authors never talked to each other. When the shell and the compiler are just user-mode programs, they can iterate much faster, and you can choose one that suits your style. You can use the same program for both, if you really want to - for a few weeks I used tclsh as my login shell - but it turns out the tools you need for programming are quite different from those for general computer use. Division of labour is ultimately a good thing, even if it means less of the population has any specific skillset.
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#8I've still got all my machines from that era. They still work, they're still highly entertaining, and very, very useful. My kids (6 and 4 yrs) are learning to read, write, spell .. and do math .. with the same machines I used when I was 13.
This just points out, to me, how arbitrary technology really is. All the energy into building that C64 is wasted if the thing ends up on the trash heap .. but dust it off today and someone, somewhere, will still find a use for it.
"Where did the IDE go wrong?"
(Which is why I think that things like LOAD81 are so darn cool .. ;) http://github.com/antirez/load81)
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#9If you are on a mac, then you can really do all this with Apple Script, which also is a bit small talk alike, and that by Maverick, can let you create libraries quite easy.
I use it a lot as a calculator, when I don't use it for autmating the UI. It is great, IMO, the best thing about a Mac.
Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC
#10There is one more important thing here: the 8 bit computer immediately invited you to start coding. The barrier to entry was incredibly low to the point of nonexistent. Compare this to a laptop today or even worse a tablet. I very strongly believe that perpetuating a "code me!" mindset vs the "consume me!" mindset has really big consequences. The ability to make your computer do something that you can do something wi…
Absolutely. It invited it to the point that for many of the 8-bit computers, to load a game you'd typically execute one or more BASIC commands that were no different in principle from any other.
On the C64 you might do "just" LOAD and RUN for a game on tape. Or you might do LOAD "$",8 (load the special directory 'file' from device 8 - the first floppy drive); LIST (to see the contents of the floppy), and then LOAD "somefile",8 / RUN to load and run your chosen program.
You were not just invited to play with BASIC. You were forced to at least acknowledge it and learn a few commands to do anything. So even if the command prompt did not intrigue you, perhaps the few BASIC commands you needed to load your games did.
And if you did a "LIST" on those games or programs you loaded you might be surprised by a full or partial BASIC listing (noteworthy examples: Sid Meier's "Pirates!" for the C64 was a mix of BASIC and machine code; though still a nightmare to modify for the curious as the machine code extended down into the BASIC memory area, which meant that modifying the tokenized length of any lines would case part of the machine code to get moved - or overwritten - and everything would break), or you might see the mysterious, to a beginner "SYS some-address" indicating a jump to a machine code. My first forays into assembly programming came after spending lots of time seeking information to figure out that curious thing.
Couple that with magazines with type-in program listings, in between game reviews and other stuff, and with manuals that pretty much started with the assumption you wanted to learn to program. I don't think people who grew up after this era really understand just how impossible it was for computer users to at even regularly have source code trust into our faces, even for those not seeking it out.
For example the VIC 20 manual that can be found at [1] (warning: large PDF), or the C64 manual at [2]. The VIC-20 manual starts with:
"You are about to meet a friendly computer! Friendly in price, friendly in size, friendly to use and learn on and experience. Most important - you don't have to be a computer programmer, or even a typist, to use it!"
.. and goes on to explain how easy it is to learn programming, for anyone, and what chapter to turn to to learn various aspects. First halfway through the preface, it starts to address users that don't want to program...
[1] http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Commodore/VIC-20%20User's... [2] http://www.commodore.ca/commodore-manuals/commodore-64-users...