SJS wrote:
When I was in Jr High I had an Apple IIc and learned BASIC. Not sure
Heh. You had a head start on me there. I was in high school when my
family got a Vic20... I checked out computer magazines from the library
and laboriously transcribed the BASIC programs so I could run them for
so long as the computer was powered up.
I guess I was fortunate. I started on a TRS-80 Color Computer.
That computer had an unusually good community. It also had a single
author (an Electrical Engineer from LA) who wrote stuff for it named
William Barden, Jr. who really stands out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barden%2C_Jr.
He wrote lots of assembly language stuff for it (including two assembly
language books). Of course, the computer also had with a *ROM*
cartridge which housed an editor/assembler. That meant that the Reset
switch could be used as an interrupt button and sometimes showed you
where your program bombed out.
I learned assembly language at the age of 12 (From Barden's "TRS-80
Color Computer Assembly Language Programming" and from Lance Leventhal's
"6809 Assembly Language Programming") and stumbled on and learned Lisp
at the age of 13 (From "The Little Lisper" now named "The Little
Schemer"). I've been warped ever since.
Since I was stuck in Western Pennsylvania, I had no one to turn to for
help, so I never learned what I *couldn't* do on a computer.
I wonder if this isn't the root of the problem... how many kids these
days ever *see* a computer as a box that follows instructions, rather
than as a box one "has an experience with"? (Wow, almost on topic!)
Very few. My best student from CS370 (Computer Architecture--but is
really basic digital logic and state machines) said: "But your class was
interesting. Nobody ever *told* us that's how computers worked."
They'll develop their own set of prejudices. We'll see how it works out.
Oh, I'm sure they'll learn to hate computers just as much as we do.
-a
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