Date : Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:42:20 +0200
From : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: BBC News - Retro computers: programmable computers
On 07/07/2010 19:08, F. Haroon wrote:
> OK, I do realize that with the absence of many ready-programmable
> computers, the market has dumbed down significantly.
Yes, somehow we are supposed to believe in the principles of FOSS. Take,
for example, BeebEm. Nice project with multiple people doing the bits
they are best with, sources available so it can be tweaked or expanded
as desired.
But, interesting question: what are the ages of the people listed in the
credits?
Okay, it might not be a fair example as a retro emulator for an '80s
computer is probably only going to appeal to a specific group of people;
but I'd be willing to suspect for other projects (RISC OS, Linuxy
bits...) that the main contributors grew up either in the era of
programmable computers, or with parents who were hardcore enthusiasts
and had the things around.
> there as an organization I know used to offer Linux training now only
> does office training!
I guess this says a lot for the requirements of Linux vs Office training.
People have to scratch their head over stupid little things like
mount/umount (why not u*n*mount? is one letter sooo difficult?) and
woeful command line parsing meaning single letter parameters are
prefixed with a dash, while longer parameters need two dashes...
...yet they need their hands held when making a spreadsheet, and
instruction on the best canned clipart for powerpoint presentations, and
how to write a letter without Clippy offering to help you (the irony of
this situation being lost on them).
> Anything that's programmable about any Windows, Linux or MacOS doesn't
> even come with a free manual or proper user guide on how to make the
> most of their capabilities,
Did you know there's a script interpreter in Windows?
C:\WINDOWS\Help\wscript.chm
which can't say much as it is 26K, and it usefully opens with:
--8<--------
About this Help file
The topics in this Help file are integrated into Help and Support
Center. To view these topics, click Start, and then click Help and Support.
--8<--------
> It seems sometimes that you need a degree to really get into the
> nitty gritty of how to make a Windows registry work for you etc.
Even with the SDK, it isn't entirely clear.
> It's a shocking thought that programming might not be not taught in
> schools any more 'cos a decade ago I remember kids being taught VB.
I was taught Pascal, with C as a follow-on. But VB wasn't so hot in the
W3.11 days.
I taught myself VB (it's like a lame version of BBC BASIC mixed with
some bastardised Javascript concepts) fairly rapidly.
What I never did was learn C on Windows. I have OpenWatcom, but looking
at the examples, the learning curve between put-button-here and
make-button-do-something is too much hassle. Shame, I bet I could drop
loads of those VB-required DLLs. But, I don't make cash from it, so I
can't be bothered.
Actually, right now, I want to find a way to assemble an ARM executable
under Windows (playing with my Neuros OSD - ARM926 core).
> Have Microsoft really made sure that the market is left without basic
> programming knowledge so that no one gets the chance to rival them?
I'm not sure we can blame Microsoft. Once upon a time, computers were
exciting and new and we'd have a near-sexual reaction at seeing "Hello
world!" flash on the screen in different colours. Ye Gads, think of the
potential lurking here. Organising data, writing letters, making the dot
matrix play "Take On Me" (A-Ha).
Today? How many hoops do you need to jump through to get Hello World
on-screen? The simplest way is probably some lame HTML and that's not
programming!
I think back in the '80s *everybody* played with writing a database, and
learned some valuable lessons about how you organise your data (mine
swapped from an indexed file, so nerrr!). :-) Why bother now when you
probably get Works or OpenOffice bundled?
Likewise word processing.
And, um... Most printers these days are either dumb winprinters (which I
guess you could control at a low level if you knew how) or smart
multi-capable devices that have a page buffer and print as the onboard
CPU sees fit. In no case can I see a quiet inkjet, or ever in the case
of lasers, be capable of playing music. It sorta needed the pins hitting
paper to tune up the different notes.
Yeah, a total waste of time - but I bet loads of us got an introduction
to programming by doing useless stuff like that.
But, then, people of my age come from an era when it was fairly safe to
walk around the woods unaccompanied, when you could go into Chichester
with an SLR and not get arrested, and when copying music (tape to tape)
was frowned upon by elders but not world-ending.
And... when computers started up with the > command prompt. By
definition, Shift-Boot floppies aside, you HAD to learn at least a
couple of BASIC commands to get the machine to do stuff. Now it's
pointy-clicky and so horribly complex you can see why people don't want
to bother. Looked in \Windows\System32 recently? What a nightmare.
Best wishes,
Rick.
--
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...