[HN Gopher] A Tribute to the Compucolor II (2013)
___________________________________________________________________
A Tribute to the Compucolor II (2013)
Author : susam
Score : 24 points
Date : 2023-07-16 01:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (compucolor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (compucolor.org)
| philipswood wrote:
| I had one of these as a child.
|
| They were awesome.
|
| I still think there is a place for basic-with-linenumbers for
| teaching beginners.
|
| One of the most awesome things about it was that when you
| switched it on it just powered up and was a computer. It dropped
| you straight into a prompt.
| bitwize wrote:
| I think that's one of the big features of old 8-bit micros that
| I'm saddest to see is gone. You turn them on and start
| programming. Today, you don't need to program a computer, it
| comes loaded with things to do, many of them already running,
| some that may work against you... and it has an app store full
| of other such things! But back then, computers were for
| programming like pencils were for writing with. Writing and
| then running programs was _what you did_ with a computer. Sure,
| you could load someone else 's program... but you had to _tell_
| the system to load it before it could... even exist in the
| computer 's memory.
| teddyh wrote:
| Any BASIC which lacks user-defined named subroutines (i.e. real
| functions, not DEF FN) is a _terrible_ language, _especially_
| for beginners:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35220605
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| The point in BASIC shouldn't be to really teach programming,
| but just give a kid the thrill of being able to type in
| something and seeing a computer do it after typing 'RUN'.
|
| You don't need named subroutines for that, at all.
| teddyh wrote:
| Some BASICs _did_ have named functions. Reportedly, The BBC
| Micro one was an early example, and later BASICs on, say,
| Atari ST, Amiga and later BASICs on MS-DOS _all_ had them.
| pinewurst wrote:
| Don't forget a borrow checker and probably lambdas too. :)
|
| BASIC - original BASIC - was designed to get people
| programming computers for fun and work, with little or no
| weight given to understanding 'computer science'. After a
| long career devoted to the latter, I respond 'pfooey!' to
| that.
| teddyh wrote:
| Have you ever tried to write a BASIC program for any
| practial purpose? I have. It's an excercise in mental
| fortitude, trying to remember whatever GOSUB 11600 meant,
| and what global variables were used as input and which ones
| were altered as an effect of calling the subroutine.
|
| Named user-defined functions is essential for any program
| longer than a screenful of text.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Have you ever tried to write a BASIC program for any
| practial purpose? I have. It's an excercise in mental
| fortitude, trying to remember whatever GOSUB 11600 meant,
| and what global variables were used as input and which
| ones were altered as an effect of calling the
| subroutine._
|
| I wrote business software back when people did such
| things in BASIC. It was no big deal.
| pinewurst wrote:
| I remember seeing one at a computer store and being totally
| envious as a Commodore PET owner. I continue to be impressed
| with the ethos of Kemeny and Kurtz.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| This is awesome. I had no idea this machine existed.
| bitwize wrote:
| Compucolor! That 8-bit, retro computer... I've never heard of!
|
| Discovering old obscure platforms like this is really a treat.
| It's like a peek into an alternate universe of computing. What
| did people do with these? Did they use them for games? Things
| like inventory and payroll? Solving engineering problems? Getting
| online with like CompuServe? Did their users communicate with
| each other? Was there a boutique industry for software?
|
| Of course we know all about these things for the "winners", your
| Apples, Commodores, and Sinclairs. But what was the "scene" like
| for the Compucolors and Videobrains? The ones that maybe moved a
| few tens of thousands of units?
| flyinghamster wrote:
| There are so many might-have-beens it's almost insane. The one
| I drooled over in my youth was the Heathkit H11, a DEC
| LSI-11/23 packaged as a Heathkit. Since my high school had an
| 11/34, it would have been a good fit, but common sense
| prevailed and my dad got an Apple II instead (as all his
| coworkers had them as well).
|
| In practice, there was enough in common between BASIC-PLUS and
| Applesoft that you could mostly treat the Apple's BASIC as a
| subset.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-07-17 23:01 UTC)