51–60 of 85 posts
To 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.
You can easily have this on a Linux machine: First install basic: apt-get install bwbasic Next find where getty starts the login program, but change it to run basic instead. In Ubuntu: /etc/init/ttyS0.conf: start on stopped rc RUNLEVEL=[2345] stop on runlevel [!2345] respawn exec /sbin/getty -8 -n -l /usr/bin/bwbasic -L 115200 ttyS0 vt102 You will see this on the serial port: Bywater BASIC Interpreter/Shell, version…
That's pretty similar to what the OP covered. Except part of the attraction was NOT having to install or configure special tools. Remember having BASIC always-on was what made it so accessible. I get it, after you do this you can just log in and voila Basic. Still until Linux comes with this as a special user login, there's a gap in the experience.
For me it was Commodore BASIC on the C64. I turn the machine on, and instantly there's a little flashing prompt inviting me to give it some input.
Having to enter commands here to LOAD from tape was what initially sparked my interest in programming. I'm telling the machine what to do, and it's doing it right away. Wow.
There was no barrier to entry. And despite valiant efforts these days, it was so much better than the modern "making programming accessible" ideas. I didn't have to install anything. Every C64 I would encounter had this functionality. It didn't feel like a dumbed down second-class-citizen environment. This was how you interacted with the machine.
I think that main-streaming of general purpose computers has killed this. I can't imagine booting my primary machine to a BASIC prompt now (or even a shell, I guess). It would make listening to music, watching videos, checking my bank balance or accessing my virtual machines for work.
I don't have separate media devices. I can't just throw on my headphones and listen to my walkman while my computer is busy with something.
Although modern computing has unlocked a lot of potential, I think we've made too many compromises. Outside of industrial and scientific applications, most computing devices try to be a jack of all trades, being everything to everyone, and doing poorly at it. Like so many contemporary software engineers (myself included - I mean, the modern tools and frameworks are too large and diverse know as intimately as we used to know computers).
Sigh.
I just habe finished reading Petzold's Code after having it in my reading list for several years now. I expected something along the same lines as Code Complete and got something entirely different. And boy, I was in for a ride. I read it in two days straight. I think this book can offer an answer for us who were too late for the type of computer mentioned in the linked article. Has any of you experience in giving th…
What is the question for the answer that the book gives?
I bought a mint C64 off of ebay last year, included was it's original Programmer's Reference. It immediately had me missing the afternoons where the limited functionality and simplicity of it all invited you to peek and poke your way around the system trying to coax music and art out of the hardware. Even people who weren't 'savvy' understood this, ex: in the 6th grade our librarian gave us simple programs to type in…
I bought a mint C64 off of ebay last year, included was it's original Programmer's Reference. It immediately had me missing the afternoons where the limited functionality and simplicity of it all invited you to peek and poke your way around the system trying to coax music and art out of the hardware. Even people who weren't 'savvy' understood this, ex: in the 6th grade our librarian gave us simple programs to type in…
Of course one great thing is that C64 was pretty much immutable and thus 6th-grader-proof. No matter what sort of state you got it in, a reboot and all was well again.
http://www.compileonline.com/execute_brainfk_online.php
I'm specifically pulling lists of "try" services rather than the much heavier "I am an IDE in your web browser" services which might be somewhat overwhelming as a first introduction to programming...
Take your web browser appliance, make "http://tryclj.com/" your web browser appliance's home page, all done.
There 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…
Even the IBM PC and XT had BASIC in ROM, which worked much the same way; and it also came with a complete set of schematics and the source code of the BIOS (I don't think the source for ROM BASIC was included, since it was licensed from Microsoft.) While it wasn't truly "open source" in the legal sense and was still copyrighted, it gave users a chance to learn how their machines worked all the way down to the hardwar…
Lots of good stuff in here. Page 52 has some details on the new "escape" key.
I'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 an…
Somehow this happened to happen at the same time when computer users rose from 1% of populace to vast majority. We probably ended up with more "developer" guys this way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know this isn't really your main point, but I think you're probably selling short the activity of typing in code from a magazine. Firstly, the act of typing in and of itself is an advantage in the task of learning to use computers. Secondly, no-one ever typed a program in perfectly, you would have to debug the program when you made a type. Sometimes the typo would create a syntax error and your interpreter would po…
It's not worthless , and neither is "watching shit scroll by for hours", but I think the better signal is in the motivation and tenacity of the kind of people who set out to do this in the first place. In the 80's, this kind of people made up a very large proportion of all computer users out of sheer necessity (heck, in the 70s, you generally had to assemble your own hardware as well). Today, it's a vanishingly small…