Micro Men
in [UK Mac]
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From: Ian McCall on 11 Oct 2009 09:27 On 2009-10-11 12:31:03 +0100, tim(a)nospam.demon.co.uk (Tim Gowen) said: > ...he was sort of right because a whole lot of programmers didn't > emerge from that period. People of that generation may be more computer > literate than any generation before them but I know a lot of people > who're younger than me who don't like computers. ! Got to say that seems like a change of history too - not many programmers arose from that era? -Everyone- who had a home machine in 1982/1986 knew at least -some- coding. I wouldn't expect the current crop of 8 year olds to write the legend of 10 PRINT "HELLO" in many cases, because computers aren't exciting to them in their own right, they're just furniture that's around the place. So yes, I agree with your second statement completely but not at all with the first one. Very different from 82/86. I'd say that started to change in the 16-bit era and also with the re-introduction of console gaming. Cheers, Ian
From: Ian McCall on 11 Oct 2009 09:29 On 2009-10-11 11:54:09 +0100, peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) said: > Jim <jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > >>> Micro mouse competitions with sawn off ZX80s! >> >> Gods, I'd forgotten about that! > > 3-D Monster Maze, the only computer game I ever really liked. And a fantastic piece of coding. Up there with 1k Chess in my book (have always been terribly impressed by the idea of doing the rules of chess plus a rudimentary AI opponent in just 1k). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K_ZX_Chess> Cheers, Ian
From: Ian McCall on 11 Oct 2009 09:32 On 2009-10-11 12:19:34 +0100, %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) said: > Quite often (as in "Life on > Mars" and its sequels) directors seem to get portrayal of that period > horribly wrong. Well, not just that period, any decade of which I have > living memory. RADALand. BBC Drama (sorry Peter) tend to have a wonderful knack of making any period in history look and sound like any other period in history, with the exception that the morals will always be those of the present day. ITV Drama do the same, except the morals are those of the 19th century and everything looks like a scene from a postcard or chocolate box. Cheers, Ian
From: jonny on 11 Oct 2009 09:32 Jim wrote: > >> One thing that struck me was that the Apple ][ was launched some time >> before the start of the story, and was still going strong after it ended >> - and probably was hardly affected by the events in the story. > > I think the Apple ][ didn't make big inroads into the UK home computer > scene as it was very expensive. The Personal Computer handbook price list (September 1983) Apple //e �925 (Alone) �1,300 (Starter Pack - disk drive+controller card, mono monitor+stand, 80-column card) Acorn/BBC (Model A) �300 (Model B) �400 (no mention of Electron) Commodore VIC-20 �125 64 �345 PET (4000) �650 (8000) �800 IBM PC �2,200 PC-XT �3,330 Sinclair ZX81 �50 ZX Spectrum �100 (16k) �130 (48k) Tandy TRS-80 �200 (I) �300 (CoCo) �2,000 (II) �1,800 (III) �1,500 (IV) Texas TI-99/4A �150
From: Woody on 11 Oct 2009 09:39
jonny <jonny(a)dontmailme.org> wrote: > Jim wrote: > > > > >> One thing that struck me was that the Apple ][ was launched some time > >> before the start of the story, and was still going strong after it ended > >> - and probably was hardly affected by the events in the story. > > > > I think the Apple ][ didn't make big inroads into the UK home computer > > scene as it was very expensive. > > The Personal Computer handbook price list (September 1983) > > Apple //e �925 (Alone) �1,300 (Starter Pack - disk drive+controller > card, mono monitor+stand, 80-column card) > > Acorn/BBC (Model A) �300 (Model B) �400 (no mention of Electron) The electron was just over �200 (afaicr, �215). I bought one, one of the first ones, and then took it back as I decided I wanted a BBC model b, as all the reviews I read were 'it does x, unlike the bbc that does x & y' etc. I really did love the BBC, it was a great machine -- Woody www.alienrat.com |