British schools teaching BBC Micro games programming again

elvis · 28th August 2010, 9:52 AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10951040

This is great. I've often lamented that modern programming students miss out on a broader crossrange of systems due to the comparatively limitless systems we have today.

Programming on old systems like these I believe teaches frugality of resources, and a desire to really optimise code and work within strict bounds. Moreso, I think it forces creativity to come out by working within strict the bounds of the hardware.

Reading interviews in magazines like Retro Gamer, you'll often read comments from 80's game devs about how games forced you to pick one or two primary game mechanics due simply to limitations of hardware. This in turn forced games to throw away a lot of the "fluff", and concentrate on what really mattered.

I certainly don't consider it a replacement for modern programming courses, but I would hope that more schools adopt a similar theme where students are exposed to older hardware (or at least older programming techniques, even if it is through emulation) to give them a grounding of where things were, before jumping into modern, high-level languages and hardware.

xsive · 28th August 2010, 11:05 AM

What a terrific idea. There's alot of fun to be had in programming resource limited devices. I'm glad a new generation of kids will get to experience the fun we had growing up.

Mau1wurf1977 · 28th August 2010, 11:47 AM

The UK has no choice now that they need to save money wherever they can

bl4ck32 · 28th August 2010, 11:50 AM

When i started high school the computer labs consisted of a BBC side, and the new pentiums (first gen 586) that only the senior students were able to use...Wish they still taught the older stuff, as it helps understand things better later on, instead of these computer courses which offer a 10 minute nostalgic look back at how crap computers were.....

tamaus · 28th August 2010, 12:04 PM

What a great idea ! I remember these machines being the "cutting edge" of technology.....and trying to write code for them....OMG !!!! suddenly I feel very very old

Mau1wurf1977 · 28th August 2010, 12:15 PM

We used LOGO (with a small turtle that you could program to draw flowers and other cool patterns) and later Turbo Pascal

Phido · 28th August 2010, 2:18 PM

I think they should still teach BASIC to every student in y 9-10.

SLATYE · 28th August 2010, 6:38 PM

If the aim was just to introduce them to programming devices with limited resources, it would have made more sense to introduce them to microcontrollers. They frequently have similar limitations (eg. 8KB flash memory, 1KB RAM, etc) but anything learnt there would be very relevant today.

What microcontrollers don't offer is a built-in programming environment; you program them from a desktop PC, and you can use a fancy IDE.

PappaSmurf · 28th August 2010, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phido

I think they should still teach BASIC to every student in y 9-10.

Agree, but should be year 7, year 9-10 should be C.

Kris_Corsair · 29th August 2010, 9:33 AM

I started learning BASIC in year 9 and went through to year 12...
I believe I would have been more prepared for my uni course if I had started BASIC from year 8 (or even 7) to grade 9 and then C from grade 10 to 12.

This is pretty awesome, I wish I did something like this in high school, the BASIC programming we did in high school was lame at best and showed no significance for real world use, which made the classes extremely boring.... You really need to have these classes accompanied by some programming that will pull the students to actually want to do it, which it seems, that the UK got it down pat..

mcandmar · 7th September 2010, 11:10 PM

Wow this brings me back. We used to have one of these in primary school, i can still remember the first day i sat down infront of one, hit enter a few times and thought "wow this is basic". At the time basic to me was this crappy programming app found on the MS DOS disk

grogamanda · 7th September 2010, 11:14 PM

I had a zx81 to learn programming on in the uk - WITH a 16K addon.

Used the BBC in school as well as the apple IIe......gorgeous.....5.25 floppys!!

28th August 2010, 9:52 AM	#1
elvis Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Brisbane Posts: 19,937	British schools teaching BBC Micro games programming again http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10951040 This is great. I've often lamented that modern programming students miss out on a broader crossrange of systems due to the comparatively limitless systems we have today. Programming on old systems like these I believe teaches frugality of resources, and a desire to really optimise code and work within strict bounds. Moreso, I think it forces creativity to come out by working within strict the bounds of the hardware. Reading interviews in magazines like Retro Gamer, you'll often read comments from 80's game devs about how games forced you to pick one or two primary game mechanics due simply to limitations of hardware. This in turn forced games to throw away a lot of the "fluff", and concentrate on what really mattered. I certainly don't consider it a replacement for modern programming courses, but I would hope that more schools adopt a similar theme where students are exposed to older hardware (or at least older programming techniques, even if it is through emulation) to give them a grounding of where things were, before jumping into modern, high-level languages and hardware. __________________ Child's Play Charity

28th August 2010, 11:47 AM	#3
Mau1wurf1977 Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Country WA Posts: 12,950	The UK has no choice now that they need to save money wherever they can __________________ Ultimate GOG.com DOSBox Tutorial, Roland vs Yamaha General MIDI DOS Games Music Comparison

28th August 2010, 11:50 AM	#4
bl4ck32 Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: adlaide Posts: 4,345	When i started high school the computer labs consisted of a BBC side, and the new pentiums (first gen 586) that only the senior students were able to use...Wish they still taught the older stuff, as it helps understand things better later on, instead of these computer courses which offer a 10 minute nostalgic look back at how crap computers were..... __________________ C:\ C:\dos C:\dos\run run\dos\run

28th August 2010, 12:15 PM	#6
Mau1wurf1977 Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Country WA Posts: 12,950	We used LOGO (with a small turtle that you could program to draw flowers and other cool patterns) and later Turbo Pascal __________________ Ultimate GOG.com DOSBox Tutorial, Roland vs Yamaha General MIDI DOS Games Music Comparison

28th August 2010, 6:38 PM	#8
SLATYE SLATYE, not SLAYTE Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Canberra Posts: 25,776	If the aim was just to introduce them to programming devices with limited resources, it would have made more sense to introduce them to microcontrollers. They frequently have similar limitations (eg. 8KB flash memory, 1KB RAM, etc) but anything learnt there would be very relevant today. What microcontrollers don't offer is a built-in programming environment; you program them from a desktop PC, and you can use a fancy IDE. __________________ Main system: Phenom II X4 920 \| 8GB (4x 2GB) DDR2-800 \| Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 v2.0 \| Leadtek Geforce 9600GSO 384MB \| Enermax Modu82+ 525W \| 1TB Hitachi HDD \| 3.5" + 5.25" FDD Laptop: Compal EL80 \| C2D T7200 \| 320GB Fujistu HDD \| 2GB DDR2-667 \| GF Go 7600

28th August 2010, 12:04 PM	#5
tamaus Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Adelaide, Mitcham Posts: 7	What a great idea ! I remember these machines being the "cutting edge" of technology.....and trying to write code for them....OMG !!!! suddenly I feel very very old

29th August 2010, 9:33 AM	#10
Kris_Corsair Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Gold Coast Posts: 130	I started learning BASIC in year 9 and went through to year 12... I believe I would have been more prepared for my uni course if I had started BASIC from year 8 (or even 7) to grade 9 and then C from grade 10 to 12. This is pretty awesome, I wish I did something like this in high school, the BASIC programming we did in high school was lame at best and showed no significance for real world use, which made the classes extremely boring.... You really need to have these classes accompanied by some programming that will pull the students to actually want to do it, which it seems, that the UK got it down pat..

7th September 2010, 11:10 PM	#11
mcandmar Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ireland Posts: 17	Wow this brings me back. We used to have one of these in primary school, i can still remember the first day i sat down infront of one, hit enter a few times and thought "wow this is basic". At the time basic to me was this crappy programming app found on the MS DOS disk

7th September 2010, 11:14 PM	#12
grogamanda Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 95	I had a zx81 to learn programming on in the uk - WITH a 16K addon. Used the BBC in school as well as the apple IIe......gorgeous.....5.25 floppys!!