Did you learn to program in the 1980's?

Maybe a bit of nostalgia available here;

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/10/programming-usborne-1980s-coding-books

A generation of children in the 1980s learned about programming from a series of computing books by Usborne Publishing. Now the company has rereleased them in free digital versions.

Originally aimed at children learning to program their ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Commodore 64 computers, the series included books like Practical Things To Do With a Microcomputer, Machine Code for Beginners, and Write Your Own Adventure Programs.

Fifteen of the books have been digitised and made available for download as PDF files from Usborne’s website, with visitors encouraged to download them for personal or educational use

Yes and I remember that book but I never stuck with it.

Did you learn to program in the 1980’s?

10 Print “No, I Didn’t”;
20 Goto 10

Run

Edit: Forgot the “Run” but Drac beat my ninja edit by 13 secs… 😳

Run

Can’t remember what magazine I used when learning to program basic on my Spectrum at age 9. By issue two I programmed a little spaceship that I could fly up and down the screen and shoot bullets. Unfortunately that was precisely as far as I went in programming 😥

EDIT : by ‘program’, I mean ‘copy the program from the magazine’ 😳

I did, and made a career out of it…
Although the last time I wrote any code was 2 years ago, and then I had to get the books out.

I do Wliko.

Late 70’s for me, started off with CESIL which was supposedly designed to introduce you to assembly which somehow it did as I then quite enjoyed 6502 on the KIM board, along with it on the UK101 and the Atom.

Nah, the 70’s. Fortran.

Holy shit! Mr Myers where are you now? I remember interminable summer afternoons, Computer Science double-period with the above mentioned.

It was so very hot in there, the room was still sound-proofed from the days of ticker-tape machines. And he was soooo boring.

Best days of your life et c.

APF

That’s the badger, good work Drac.

I got a Speccy in ’84 and did some fairly decent BASIC programming – I do remember those books but think I just taught myself by seeing code in magazines. Made my programming modules at College/Uni pretty easy for me and then I went into an IT career – mostly Oracle database stuff. Lost most interest now though really in hands-on technical things.

Yes, I did. I read most of those Usborne books, and ended up with a career. Not solely down to Usborne though – more down to a single-mindedness which has utterly deserted me since age 18 or so.

There’s a clear difference in this industry between keen capable but ultimately normal individuals, and the kind of person who was a kid who’d read these books cover to cover. Geeks, in other words 🙂

Machine code and Fortran with heaps of punched cards, then we got monitors and keyboards, wow!

keen capable but ultimately normal individuals, and the kind of person who was a kid who’d read these books cover to cover. Geeks, in other words

Hello!

Think I used to have that book, and another one that talked about the Newbrain Grundy and Jupiter Ace.

Learned Z80 assembler aged about 14. Was an expert at making the Amstrad CPC464 crash.

Bletchley Park, and in particular the Computer Museum on the same site is still my favourite museum.

yes I remember that

them were the days

I remember typing in hex from magazines only to knock the power cable out before saving. Never finishing writing that game. BBC micro programs on teletext. Getting pins and needles in your legs from sitting cross legged in front of the living room TV with a Oric 1 balanced on the footstool. The glow of a greenscreen monitor. Cutting holes in floppys to make them double sided. Pulling all nighters. Being amazed at turbo pascal and learning from K+R in turbo C.

it’s all debuggers, intellisense, and copy and paste from stackoverflow now, don’t know they’re born

and it was called PROGRAMMING not ‘coding’

llama – You are Jeff Minter and I claim my five pounds. 😀

For my 3rd year Uni project I made a Verilog model of the 6502 processor so students in subsequent years could simulate it and step through each clock cycle to see how it worked.

I was a bit rubbish at the programming side so made a few noddy programs to demonstrate the model worked. Could’ve done with that book to help me write some better programs.

I might see if I can dig out my files and get it up and running again and write some better programs.

For those wishing they could actually type in the programs in those books again – very decent emulators are available. The Oric 1 emulator I have is so authentic it contains a setting to simulate using a crappy TV that makes the screen all fuzzy with rainbow fringes. Using OpenGL for a nice bit of juxtaposition 🙂

i’m sure i had similar books but with ghosts not robots – its all a bit hazy though

The Z80 is the best processor ever made. FACT.

The Z80 is the best processor ever made. FACT.

Geek fail… you missed the 8bit from that sentence 🙂

70s

punched cards, algol68, basic, commodore pet, cassettes, 5 and 1/4(??) floppies, assembly code, paper tape readers,

how many people on here got paid to teach the department professors sons to play space invaders

still doing so (when I’m lucky)

10 Print “No, I Didn’t”;
20 Goto 10

Run

Yep.
That’s about as far as I got.
Got me an O level in computer studies with that. 😉
(OK – there was a bit more to it…)

Yeah used to program Z80s and 6502s in assembler using a CP/M development system that used 8″ disks lol and an Apple IIe

Later on we had a Tektronix Unix development system woh

Did Fortran & Cobol at college in the 80’s.

Never worked in IT, although we did have a rabbit called Reverse Polish for a while.

Ooh I had that book! Probably still in my parents loft.

6502 assembler? Yep on Acorn Atom’s as well. Then Electron’s I think
Basic – loads, wrote a few games
Turbo Pascal – (was that the Borland version?) – superb after hacking about with other languages
And SideKick – the best editor ever

I did end up programming for a couple of years after Uni. Then saw the light. Fairly my copies of at least one of those books is in the loft somewhere…

some of the books I’ve still got, though I don’t think they been even looked in since about 98 🙂

Weirdest language ever I think was LISP with VED WIGGLING TURNED ON. For those that remember. Or Prologue. Never did Fortran but hacked a lot of Cobol. Man that was dull.

ADA, now that was a nice language

Anyway, I’m off for a reminisce. As you were 😉

Few people realise that autism grew out of prolonged computer programming in the 1980s. there is legacy of that even now. Before we used the term ‘autism’ we already used the phrase ‘on the spectrum’

“where’s Billy? He never seems to play football anymore”
“Yeah, he’s at home in his room on his computer”
“Wow, ever since Christmas he’s been on the Spectrum”

Impressive bookshelf Klunk but missing the classic

Before we used the term ‘autism’ we already used the phrase ‘on the spectrum’

Aaaah, that’ll also explain some of the pricks who’ve been “on the BBC” since the eighties.

I did an A Level (having never really touched a computer before that) which was enough to get me my first commercial programming job in 1983 which was an 8 bit macro assembler running on an ICL System 25.

32kb partition per user – the old timers who’d worked on the previous 4 bit assembler System 10’s thought this was dreadfully extravagant.

[edit]

“System 25 also pioneered in ICL use of Winchester-technology (35MB) fixed discs”

Unprecedented data storage.

Albeit across ten 24″ platters in a box the size of a large filing cabinet.

Early-to-mid-80s for me on Dragon BASIC and 6809 assembly. My first teacher was Dragon User Magazine… simpler times 🙂

Weirdest language ever I think was LISP

Lisp is ace, still used, and certainly makes you think rather than code by cut+pasting stackoverflow.

My other weirdest was Occam

Fortran was our language of choice for implementing mathematical simulations.

/me sets a calendar reminder to remind me to download those PDFs tonight…

Never worked in IT, although we did have a rabbit called Reverse Polish for a while.

I had an HP33E back in the day..

Surely it was

10 PrintRINT “No, I Didn’t”;
20 GotoOTO 10

RunUN

There’s a clear difference in this industry between keen capable but ultimately normal individuals, and the kind of person who was a kid who’d read these books cover to cover. Geeks, in other words

I work in a building with hundreds of them – it may be my personal experience but the ones who learned with those books in those days aren’t geeks – they are extremely smart and have a far better understanding what they are doing than the “new generation”. The one I respect most has a copy of numerical recipes in C on his desk – not that he needs to open it, he uses it as a mouse mat!

Bletchley Park, and in particular the Computer Museum on the same site is still my favourite museum.

There was a recent debate in the office about who had the biggest influence on 20th century computing…

…the conclusion was possibly Adolf Hitler!

If you take the guided tour round the Bletchley Park part of Bletchley Park, I certainly wouldn’t disagree about Hitler.