To get this I learned to program the BBC micro computer. For those who don't know here's the summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro Its 1980's home computer. It has 8 bit CPU with 32KB of memory and runs about 2MHz. Compare this to modern PCs which have 4GB of Memory (x125000 as much) and run at 4GHz (x2000 times as fast). Did I mention that you have to plug them into a TV to make them work and load and save their programs to a audio cassette?
Anyway I was down in Singapore Science Centre, today & what did I find but:
Instantly, I grabbed the kids & pulled them in.
After they had finished playing pacman using pieces of fruit (I know it sounds weird, it was a demo of using conductivity). I managed to spot a spare computer and had them sitting down and play in grannies garden (those who know it love this game).
I then handed them a handy programming sheet and a got them onto it. It was a little funny with the locals asking me for help, (they assumed I was one of the organisers), but I didn't mind I was back into my environment and remembering all the strange quirks of how a BBC was to program. The tutorials were very good stuff, only 15 minutes or so to type in (depending upon your keyboard skills).
Here were the results:
My next thoughts are, can I build some simple graphical tutorials (like the ones the kids did), which can be typed in so quickly and easily? It will probably by Python on a Raspberry Pi. But I need to put my thinking cap on a bit to look at this.
TTFN,
Mark
