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My father bought me a russian clone of ZX Spectrum 48k in 1994 (in post soviet states, ZX Spectrum was hugely popular during 90s just like in UK during 80s): h

My father bought me a russian clone of ZX Spectrum 48k in 1994 (in post soviet states, ZX Spectrum was hugely popular during 90s just like in UK during 80s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum My father was not an engineer and had no idea what to do with it. I also was completely uneducated (I was 10 years old boy in 1994) and basically ignored school classes (or prefered to sleep there). So I also had no idea what it is. He bought me games and bunch of books about programming on ZX Spectrum. I just started writing code from these books and see the result on the screen. Then I started slightly modify code. Then I started writing my own little programs. After 6 years, I managed to learn assembly language and even write my own version of Snake game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(video_game) I had no help whatsoever from my father, from school teachers or anyone else. Then my father bought me Pentium I 166 Mhz with installed Windows 98. Unlike ZX Spectrum I couldn't see what's going on under the hood at all. I tried some available programming languages. Their IDEs were huge, bloated, complicated and confusing. I was so frustrated that I couldn't understand what's going on under the hood so I dropped programming for next 7 years. I returned to programming when I switched to Linux and started writing programs in C using Vim as editor (and I'm still stick to Vim!). So here are my advices based on my story: Buy them something similar to ZX Spectrum, a small, simple, programming friendly micro-computer where kids can start programming straight away. Give them some simple programming books. Kids will learn themselves! I personally can't imagine how I would start programming on modern computer. Especially under Windows OS (such a messy unfriendly OS for beginning developers!). I would definitely not teach kids web-development! It will create a mess in their heads!

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> It will create a mess in their heads! Worse, teaching under-12 year olds to think "logically" like computers (of any kind) may mess them up for life. We'll probably hear about it in a few years, given the current fashion. After the consequences become apparent and the victims complain, if they can. (Fortunately, humans in general are quite resistant to instruction.)
teddyh 10y ago
You were frustrated by Windows 98 because you could not reason about it on the level you were used to. But think back on the earlier electronic enthusiasts who were used to thinking about resistors and voltages – they would have been just as frustrated by your ZX Spectrum because they would not have been able to reason about machine code by thinking about what voltages they mean. The level to reason about Windows 98 would instead be by thinking about installed programs, registry settings, DLLs, etc. If someone came to computers fresh and started with Windows 98, this level is what they would know.
alok-g 10y ago
Wow, my story is near-identical to yours! Just shifted back in time by six years. ZX Spectrum+ from my father in 1988, self-learnt after that. Made a few games like you, but had no hard drive or disks. Storage mechanism for my programs were pen and paper. Learnt machine code programming in tenth grade. Later got a PC with Windows in 1997 and learnt C.
Baeocystin 10y ago
I can relate. I feel very, very lucky that my early programming experience was on a Commodore 128. Instant-on, straight to the REPL. And being able to switch between C=64 mode & C=128 mode made me aware of how differences in hardware and language changed how you approached a problem, and how CP/M was something else entirely. It really was the perfect intersection of complicated enough to be a fun system to explore, and you could do Real Projects with it, and simple enough that you could 'hold the whole machine in your head'. I still remember how proud I was when I figured out how to write a TSR driver for a mouse cursor using the tape buffer for storage so that I could move a sprite around with a joystick at the same time as being able to use the shell. At the time, it felt like magic.
userbinator 10y ago
I would agree --- actually buy your kids a ZX or C64, and also show them all the cool demos others have made.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

> It will create a mess in their heads! Worse, teaching under-12 year olds to think "logically" like computers (of any kind) may mess them up for life. We'll probably hear about it in a few years, given the current fashion. After the consequences become apparent and the victims complain, if they can. (Fortunately, humans in general are quite resistant to instruction.)

teddyh 10y ago

You were frustrated by Windows 98 because you could not reason about it on the level you were used to. But think back on the earlier electronic enthusiasts who were used to thinking about resistors and voltages – they would have been just as frustrated by your ZX Spectrum because they would not have been able to reason about machine code by thinking about what voltages they mean. The level to reason about Windows 98 would instead be by thinking about installed programs, registry settings, DLLs, etc. If someone came to computers fresh and started with Windows 98, this level is what they would know.

alok-g 10y ago

Wow, my story is near-identical to yours! Just shifted back in time by six years. ZX Spectrum+ from my father in 1988, self-learnt after that. Made a few games like you, but had no hard drive or disks. Storage mechanism for my programs were pen and paper. Learnt machine code programming in tenth grade. Later got a PC with Windows in 1997 and learnt C.

Baeocystin 10y ago

I can relate. I feel very, very lucky that my early programming experience was on a Commodore 128. Instant-on, straight to the REPL. And being able to switch between C=64 mode & C=128 mode made me aware of how differences in hardware and language changed how you approached a problem, and how CP/M was something else entirely. It really was the perfect intersection of complicated enough to be a fun system to explore, and you could do Real Projects with it, and simple enough that you could 'hold the whole machine in your head'. I still remember how proud I was when I figured out how to write a TSR driver for a mouse cursor using the tape buffer for storage so that I could move a sprite around with a joystick at the same time as being able to use the shell. At the time, it felt like magic.

userbinator 10y ago

I would agree --- actually buy your kids a ZX or C64, and also show them all the cool demos others have made.