This is how you ought to learn to program!

[major_clanger]

BBC: BBC Micros used in retro programming class.

Next lesson - give 'em a copy of Zaks' Programming the 6502 and introduce the wonders of assembler. (Of course, real die-hards will complain that this is too easy and they ought to hand-compile it.)

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

And then type it in in hex on a KIM-1's keypad.

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

Teach 'em to put the holes in Jacquard cards and polish the brass cogs.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Cambridge Engineering students used to be taught microprocessors using a 6800 on a board with a hex keypad and a 8-digit 7-segment LED readout.

Yes, we did have to hand compile.

The BBC-B was easy after that.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

So they were previously being taught to program Visual Basic?

*boggle*

[unwholesome-fen.livejournal.com]

Yes, I used to code using the hex codes on a Commodore Pet, which was itself a step up from the 380Z. When the BBC Micro arrived it was just too easy. Kids nowadays don't know they're born, etc. etc. etc.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

And still are according to the Radio 4 report I heard this morning.

Visual Basic is great as it doesn't require compiling, you draw up your dialog boxes and add code snippets to events (e.g. draw an "OK" button and then add code to the button.click event) so it gives fast and enjoyable feedback and prototyping.

And if you know Visual Basic, then Basic on the Beeb is quite similar.

VB: It's a gateway drug language ... from there you go on to C# or Java ... but you've learned the basics of algorithms, variables, variable types, simple object orientation etc.

Apparently people used to change the oil in their cars and gap their own sparkplugs too ... :-)

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I still do!

[ellarien]

I used a BBC Master to control the experiment for my PhD project back in the 80s. It was certainly an exercise in fitting quarts into pint pots -- finding odd corners in the memory stack to stick bits of assembly code, shuffling data in and out of the sideways RAM. At one point I even decompiled a screen-dump program (100 bytes long) by hand so I could move it and free up space in the stack. I always thought computers lost something when the computer-owning experience stopped being about writing your own code and became all about using slick pre-packaged applications.

(Hobbles off back into lurkerdom, shaking cane.)

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... not so convinced this makes sense. I could probably still blat out a working program in BBC Basic and 6502 without any trouble, but I'd be lost trying to do the same thing in a more Object Orientated language.

I started self teaching myself some Python so I could help out with some of our server code, before my CTO suggested this was not a practical use of my time.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

At college we did the same thing but with a Z80. At a later stage in the course we had to transfer our programs to EPROM by manually typing our hand-assembled code into an EPROM programmer that was basically a modified Sinclair ZX80 complete with vacuum-formed white plastic case and membrane keyboard. Later still we were set loose on a DOS-based 8051 assembler.