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My favorite 1980's Canadian TV show: Bits and Bytes
- germinalphrase 2y agoLet’s not forget Mighty Machines.
- thanatos519 2y agoI watched all of Mighty Machines with my kid recently and learned so much!
- victor106 2y agowhere can you watch them?
- germinalphrase 2y agoThere are some available on YouTube. One of the first shows that we let our kid watch. The trucks have voices (sort of of) but mostly it’s just a narrator describing what machines do while they calmly do machine stuff.
- victor106 2y agothank you. I found it on YouTube
- acheron 2y agoMy oldest kid loved Mighty Machines so much when he was little.
- rfrey 2y agoI knew the guy that did the animation for mighty machines. The voices of all the characters in the first two seasons were drawn from his friends in bluegrass bands.
- jszymborski 2y agoShocking to see Luba Goy presenting a serious show about computers! I think most Canadians know her as a sketch comedian from her work in the Royal Canadian Air Farce. https://youtu.be/eRDTCE7DEMY https://youtu.be/eRDTCE7DEMY
- Waterluvian 2y agoI went to a filming as a kid. They’re all naturally hilarious, but especially Goy and Morgan. Also here’s my favourite. The look on Morgan’s face when he delivers the punch line of the sketch is one of such supreme satisfaction. https://youtu.be/67-GeNYShbc?si=SlvGmFnZ9akGiD7M https://youtu.be/67-GeNYShbc?si=SlvGmFnZ9akGiD7M
- jszymborski 2y agoAn amazing skit. Happens to be that Abbott and Fergusen are alumni of my high school (where they met).
- cmcconomy 2y agosmall world - me too!
- johnny_canuck 2y agoI thought this was a parody at first for that reason, haha
- canucker2016 2y agoEven back when this TV show came out, Luba Goy (and Billy Van) were known for their comedy. I kept waiting for the jokes... I expected to be laughing my head off. Instead, we get calm, serious Luba Goy and Billy Van teaching us about microcomputers. It's like Robin Williams teaching a subject with a straight face... You want the comedy to flow.
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- thanatos519 2y agoAs part of the generation who grew up along with computers (that is to say that computers were also growing up) I am concerned that this level of understanding is no longer common. What happens when not enough people remember how the foundations of our towers of abstraction work? I've been shopping for a C=64 for my kid.
- rbanffy 2y agoI would recommend the TheC64 Maxi. It’s a replica, but very faithful, and can be setup to start as a C64 would (disk and tape are emulated from USB sticks, but that’s a minor compromise).
- vunderba 2y agoThe same thing that happens with every level of technology that eventually becomes ubiquitous enough to be considered a household appliance. How many people understand the internal workings of a combustion engine, how a telephone works, or how a microwave heats up their food? Here's what happens, society chugs along just fine until a catastrophic event like an EMP which effectively drops them back into the Stone Age, except even worse because many people have jobs with skill sets that don't really serve a purpose outside of the modern capitalistic economy.
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- anonzzzies 2y agoNot many understand but they should try. It is very fulfilling to build an engine (start with an electric motor; it’s trivial but still fulfilling). It is very fulfilling to build a computer out of basic logic gates. Or a radio out of some crap that’s definitely laying around in your house. You are missing out not doing that; things seem like magic until you do them. Sure building a processor yourself won’t have all the branch prediction and etc as your intel/m* has, but at least you understand how it could work. Same for gpus ; you won’t be making anything close to what the state of the art is, but you’ll understand how it gets there.
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- ulrischa 2y agoIn Germany: WDR Computerclub https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDR_Computerclub https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDR_Computerclub
- elfrinjo 2y agoAnd they (well, one of them) are still active https://www.youtube.com/@computerclubzwei https://www.youtube.com/@computerclubzwei
- ulrischa 2y agoYes that is cool. I think the other guy is already dead
- riedel 2y agoYes unfortunately, but they unfortunately even split before the YouTube channel [1] Here is an translated interview with Wolfgang Back [2] about the early days. [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Back https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Back [2] https://sceneworld.org/blog/2019/07/23/video-interview-with-wolfgang-back-(english-version)/ https://sceneworld.org/blog/2019/07/23/video-interview-with-...
- riedel 2y agoYes, grew up with them too. The future was here, lol. Smart Home from the beginning of the 90s: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIvE8XwJ0H0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIvE8XwJ0H0
- ulrischa 2y agoOh this one is cool. Thanks
- binarysneaker 2y agoI'd love to watch all of them. Does anyone have a torrent?
- timbit42 2y agoYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@bitsandbytestvo https://www.youtube.com/@bitsandbytestvo
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- timbit42 2y agoJim Butterfield was a consultant on this video series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Butterfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Butterfield
- gramie 2y agoI learned to program my C64 in assembly language thanks to Jim!
- localfirst 2y agowish i could watch YTV again online like netflix all my old favorite shows: little hamster show, wishbone, whatamess, dragonball z , gunda wing, uh-oh (my friend was a contestant), video arcade top 10 and the most iconic of all: The Zone
- vhodges 2y agohttps://www.stacktv.ca/ https://www.stacktv.ca/ Has YTV (probably not older shows though) and Stack is a bit pricey in my opinion.
- jszymborski 2y agoThe YTV set is all lame now though
- klondike_klive 2y agoNot to mention the Amazing Adrenalini Brothers
- demondemidi 2y agoI loved this show. I taught me the difference between a compiler and an interpreter a decade before the web even existed, when our school had one commodore PET. Core memory: I was in 7th grade and I got teased mercilessly for mentioning it during science class once. Ironically, the kid who teased me the most went on to become a founder of a very successful internet company in the late 90's and then retired in his early 30's and just flies around the world teaching people to surf. Grrr...
- unsupp0rted 2y agoFor me it was Dotto's Data Cafe (1990s Canadian TV show): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1wEOoCDNmg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1wEOoCDNmg
- brandon272 2y agoMe too!
- qwll 2y agoHe has his own youtube channel as well: https://www.youtube.com/@dottotech https://www.youtube.com/@dottotech Fantastic show for sure.
- unsupp0rted 2y ago3000 views per video. 480p video quality. A travesty! This guy is an expert technology communicator for a non-tech crowd, even today. Youtube killed the TVO star.
- 31337Logic 2y agoOh my god, thanks for the memories! I grew up watching this, just across the border in Buffalo!
- vhodges 2y agohttp://www.davidstringer.ca/index.htm http://www.davidstringer.ca/index.htm Is worth a mention too
- deskamess 2y agoHistory Bites was another good one.
- louthy 2y agoIn the UK we had The Computer Programme [1] (with Kraftwerk - Computer Love as its theme) and Making the Most of the Micro [2] [1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtimvwAoYtnCtLiLspq_Gnng1XusYwPU&feature=shared https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtimvwAoYtnCtLiLspq_Gnng... [2] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtimvwAoYtlWZdX-MgnHrr-GUS7m8F7g&feature=shared https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtimvwAoYtlWZdX-MgnHrr-G...
- thomassmith65 2y agoYou may already realize this, but the backing track and production of the "Bits and Bytes" theme slavishly borrow from the song "Neon Lights" by Kraftwerk. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rbARvOyyjUI https://youtube.com/watch?v=rbARvOyyjUI
- klondike_klive 2y agoI'd love to know who animated that intro. Strongly reminds me of the intro to Bananaman, or Cosgrove Hall's work on eg Jamie and the Magic Torch.
- abirkill 2y agoThere were also several others, including some live shows, all of which can be found on the BBC's Computer Literacy Project Archive: https://clp.bbcrewind.co.uk/ https://clp.bbcrewind.co.uk/ During one of the live shows, demonstrating e-mail, the e-mail account was hacked, probably the first hack captured on TV: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9ak7w5/as-seen-on-tv-when-hackers-hacked-a-bbc-computer-live-in-1983 https://www.vice.com/en/article/9ak7w5/as-seen-on-tv-when-ha...
- coin 2y agoJim Butterfield Commodore 64 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J9WnHuGjZ38 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J9WnHuGjZ38
- rbanffy 2y agoThis show was aired in Brazil while I was growing up. Dubbed, as it was common in TV back then. IIRC, it aired in my state’s educational channel. It was weird to see computers we didn’t have access to (most Brasilian ones were TRS, Sinclair, and Apple II compatibles. No PET and no PCs just yet. And no Xerox 820 either.
- rbanffy 2y agoFor most people here I imagine Computer Chronicles is already known. It’s on YouTube and on the Internet Archive, and one of the presenters is the guy who was the Bill Gates we needed, not the one we deserved.
- macote 2y agoThere was also a French Canadian version of this show called "Octo-puce". https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octo-puce https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octo-puce
- jszymborski 2y agoThat's an awesome name. ("Puce" is French for "Computer Chip" in this context, "Octo" as in Octet).
- type0 2y ago> Richard Feynman on explaining technical matters to the average person Richard Feynman lecture on computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA
- koolba 2y agoEvery time I’ve watched that video I wonder what it would have been like to be in the audience and correct Feynman that 8x7 != 16.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y agoBut, Feynman also tells this interviewer that he can't really explain how magnetic attraction and repulsion work. "I can't explain that attraction in terms of anything else that's familiar to you." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8
- mistercow 2y agoI think this is a really important part of simplified explanations. You can get pretty far explaining things to people based on the questions that come to them naturally, but eventually you’ll hit a point where understanding requires asking a very long series of the right questions. At these points you have to be willing to say “to go further in this direction, we have to cover several dozen hours of background material” rather than trying to find an immediate practical connection that doesn’t exist.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y agoThat clip was part of a longer interview with Feynman and he did a lot of those. If he were that concerned about oversimplifying or getting into circular arguments (magnets, rubber bands, elasticity, back to electromagnetism) I think he would not have done them in the first place. I am a great admirer of Feynman and overall appreciate what he has done to explain physics and the scientific approach to the public. In this case, I wonder why he agreed to the interview at all. Robert Frost addressed some of this is "Education by Poetry." I don't pretend to grok all of his talk but he talks about how we use metaphor to explain and understand but that metaphor has its limitations [1]. "Another metaphor that has interested us in our time and has done all our thinking for us is the metaphor of evolution. Never mind going into the Latin word. The metaphor is simply the metaphor of the growing plant or of the growing thing. And somebody very brilliantly, quite a while ago, said that the whole universe, the whole of everything, was like unto a growing thing. That is all. I know the metaphor will break down at some point, but it has not failed everywhere." [1] https://www.poetrysoup.com/poetry/resources/documents/education-by-poetry-robert-frost.pdf https://www.poetrysoup.com/poetry/resources/documents/educat...
- ChumpGPT 2y agoI met Luba Goy at a comedy show many years ago. I also knew Billy Van, when Billy Van was moving to California in the 70's from Toronto, he gave me his German Shepard called Lobo. Kind of weird to see a post with those 2 people....
- Barrin92 2y ago>And yet, they do NOT talk down to their audience. They do not dumb things down. Reminded me of an old NBC interview with Frank Herbert that ended up in my Youtube feed a few days ago. (https://youtu.be/26GPaMoeiu4 https://youtu.be/26GPaMoeiu4) It's pretty wild just how different the tone, language and content is to what you expect to see on big platforms or channels nowadays.
- Beestie 2y agoIf SCTV is not on this list then I have nothing further to discuss. Good day, Gentlemen.
- RecycledEle 2y agoI think it may be on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bitsandbytestvo https://www.youtube.com/@bitsandbytestvo
- RecycledEle 2y agoI'm going to use a few of those videos next time I teach computer programming.
- bitwize 2y agoI have an ancient memory of this show wherein Billy says "Word processing? That sounds like FOOD processing!" I have not yet been able to refind this moment, even going through the YouTube archives. But going through those videos made me wistful. It was like Mr. Wizard (of whom I was also a fan back then): concise, friendly, encyclopedic explanations of both how to do things with the computers of the day, and of how the machines actually worked. For example, explaining the CPU as a little filing clerk inside the machine who receives instructions on what to do with the numbers stored in the vast array of numbered filing cabinets (i.e., the RAM). The videos interposing the bits with Luba and Billy also had a lovely early-80s "analog aesthetic", akin to Sesame Street.
- uncertainrhymes 2y agoCBC also had a wonderful show call ZeD -- early 2000s, it was user generated content before anyone knew what that was. Short films, music by unknown artists, oddball animation. They had an 'interactive website' years before YouTube existed, and the format intentionally had a lot of internet crossover. They clearly had no idea what they were doing half the time, and it was wonderful. Whenever people reminisce about the early internet, I think of this show as a pioneer in 'new media'.
- ape4 2y agoThere is still Spark on CBC radio https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark about "technology and culture".
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoThis was when Canada was creating value. Not it is a birthing ground for talent who need to go to the US to achieve their potential.
- blindriver 2y agoI watched this when I was a kid in the 80s in Canada. It was super interesting and made me want to learn how to program. Unfortunately my parents weren’t rich enough to afford a computer so I never got into computers until I graduated from college, but here I am now in my 50s and in Silicon Valley as a full fledged programmer.