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I think the limitations are not main reason why these 8-bit computers produced many good programmers. It's the fact that they booted straight to BASIC. In many

I think the limitations are not main reason why these 8-bit computers produced many good programmers. It's the fact that they booted straight to BASIC. In many cases, that was all you had. That invited people to start experimenting. My parents were also poor, I learned BASIC without having access to a computer except for one hour a week at school, I didn't have my own computer until many years later, I was fixing other people's computers to earn money to get components for my computer, I didn't have access to internet until around 2000, so I was learning from outdated books. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I didn't have those limitations. Anyway, Raspberry Pi is definitely the closest thing to the experience now. You boot up the default image and you have access to a lot of programming tools. You even get to peek/poke memory to access the GPIO pins, but you have to do it as root these days. :)

prezjordan 12y ago
I like your hypothesis. Maybe I'll campaign to get BASIC material on Khan Academy ;) Only semi-kidding.
- empressplay 12y ago
  We're developing a BASIC interpreter called retRUNner that's (initially) Applesoft compatible, but will have modern graphics and sound capabilities so users (kids, mostly) will be able to play games like Woz's original Breakout (we have a collection of over 400 listings we'll be shipping with it) and upgrade them to 3D, add art, music, sound effects and so on. So we're teaching a bit of history along with some coding skills. Down the road we're going to add additional 'dialects' such as Apple LOGO, and Atari, Sinclair and Commodore BASICs, but the Apple II version will be out soon -- I'll be sure to mention it on here when we release it =)
  - prezjordan 12y ago
    So cool! Happy to give you early feedback if you so wish. Best of luck with the project.
  - ddingus 12y ago
    I like this.
  - mkramlich 12y ago
    for bonus points support all the same PEEKs and POKEs and CALLs that Applesoft BASIC did on the II series. even if it's not strictly part of the BASIC itself, but the integration between it and the hardware/BIOS, it would be nice. technically might be required to correctly run lots of the BASIC programs from that era. I know most of my own relied on them for certain effects.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mgkimsal 12y ago
"I think the limitations are not main reason why these 8-bit computers produced many good programmers. It's the fact that they booted straight to BASIC. In many cases, that was all you had. That invited people to start experimenting." More than half the kids I knew who had computers growing up just used them to play games - there was no experimenting with BASIC or anything else. It was a games console with a keyboard - that was it. OF those who did program, I think many were forced in to getting 'better' because of the limitations. You generally couldn't say "just add another meg of ram to run this" - there really was only one configuration in many cases - you had to think of interesting ways to compact more info in to a program (compression, page out to disk, etc). Yes, having a programming environment as the first thing you're greeted with probably did get many people involved, but the limitations also produced a mindset amongst many devs of learning how to do more with less.

prezjordan 12y ago

I like your hypothesis. Maybe I'll campaign to get BASIC material on Khan Academy ;) Only semi-kidding.

empressplay 12y ago
We're developing a BASIC interpreter called retRUNner that's (initially) Applesoft compatible, but will have modern graphics and sound capabilities so users (kids, mostly) will be able to play games like Woz's original Breakout (we have a collection of over 400 listings we'll be shipping with it) and upgrade them to 3D, add art, music, sound effects and so on. So we're teaching a bit of history along with some coding skills. Down the road we're going to add additional 'dialects' such as Apple LOGO, and Atari, Sinclair and Commodore BASICs, but the Apple II version will be out soon -- I'll be sure to mention it on here when we release it =)
- prezjordan 12y ago
  So cool! Happy to give you early feedback if you so wish. Best of luck with the project.
- ddingus 12y ago
  I like this.
- mkramlich 12y ago
  for bonus points support all the same PEEKs and POKEs and CALLs that Applesoft BASIC did on the II series. even if it's not strictly part of the BASIC itself, but the integration between it and the hardware/BIOS, it would be nice. technically might be required to correctly run lots of the BASIC programs from that era. I know most of my own relied on them for certain effects.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

mgkimsal 12y ago

"I think the limitations are not main reason why these 8-bit computers produced many good programmers. It's the fact that they booted straight to BASIC. In many cases, that was all you had. That invited people to start experimenting." More than half the kids I knew who had computers growing up just used them to play games - there was no experimenting with BASIC or anything else. It was a games console with a keyboard - that was it. OF those who did program, I think many were forced in to getting 'better' because of the limitations. You generally couldn't say "just add another meg of ram to run this" - there really was only one configuration in many cases - you had to think of interesting ways to compact more info in to a program (compression, page out to disk, etc). Yes, having a programming environment as the first thing you're greeted with probably did get many people involved, but the limitations also produced a mindset amongst many devs of learning how to do more with less.