On May 27, 2016, at 2:37 PM, Jay West <[email protected]> wrote:
> Drlegendre wrote...
> -----
> And BASIC is great, but as soon as the kid grasps the concepts, move him to
> Perl or Python ASAP.
> -----
>
> I suggest instead...
> "BASIC is great, but as soon as the kid grasps the concepts, move him to
> assembly language ASAP."
>
> *grin*
> I'm only 10% kidding lol
Ew - apologies, been top-posting all day to my other email correspondents,
please stand on your head while you read my last post ;-).
Jay has a great point. With PC-XT class hardware, he will want to do things
faster. If some of your tasks for him are suitable for short assebly language
programs, and he can make them happen 100 times faster than in BASIC, that
might grab his attention.
Of course, rather than expose him to 8088 assembler, I’d recommend you run
right out and grab a used TRS-80 Color Computer - cheap, and 6809 assembly is
very very nice - no segment registers.
The downside of *that* is that if he ever decides to use the “Sign Extend”
instruction, you’ll have to have a talk with him about the birds, the bees, and
where little subroutines come from :-).
- Mark
