The Computer Literacy Project

Happy Days.

Yes VERY nice.

In 1978/1979 the UK seemed woefully unprepared for the ‘new technology’.

I’m pretty sure we were in that state again at the turn of this century…

I was a little late coming along to things like that but it didn’t matter because the schools I went to (secondary in 1997) were still using BBC Micros…

Then when I was in 2nd or 3rd year we got some swanky “new” Windows 95 machines so I signed up to do the “Computing” course thinking I would learn something useful but sadly not. I remember one hour long lesson where we went through what a window was and how to click between two of them…I mean what…? This must have been 1999 or thereabouts…WIMP systems had been around for a while by then! I had been using an Amiga, Windows and Linux machines at home for ages…

Sorry…just venting a bit…kinda feel like my generation got shafted when it came to computing education…

Or maybe just my school was crap?

Fifty years ago I knew a guy called Mick McLean (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzXnTeuJDro) who was a postgraduate at SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit) at Sussex University. He got sent out to Japan to report on what was happening there with computers and his report fed into the BBC’s series on Microcomputers, which in turn led to the commissioning of the BBC Micro and the rise of Acorn. He was later founding editor of the Electronics Times.

Sadly the good intentions of those times were not carried through into education. Many Computing Courses in Colleges of Technology were devoid of intellectual content; they just taught keyboard skills that were out of date long before graduation. Much soul-searching must have taken place in the heart of academe about the reasons: too few people with the right skills and knowledge, a fatuous belief that school mathematics teachers would also know about programming and software development, general ignorance about computing.

kinda feel like my generation got shafted when it came to computing education

It was, Glen. It was not just your school.

I was a little late coming along to things like that but it didn’t matter because the schools I went to (secondary in 1997) were still using BBC Micros…

What I’m learning from this is that I might not be the youngest person here after all :)

I started secondary in 1996 and had my first foray into the land of OS/2 on IBM desktops, albeit with the bulk of the work being done in the Win-OS2 compatibility environment (I want to say under ClarisWorks but I’m not 100% certain). For the 1997 year they’d reconfigured all the machines to boot directly into Windows 3.1.

Windows 95 came along in 1998 (on new Compaq machines; the IBMs continued to run 3.1). They stuck with that arrangement until I left, but they did eventually get rid of the IBMs (my younger brother came home with a few one day, along with an old full-tower server including three caddy-loading CD drives!)

Like you, I didn’t need to learn how to use a GUI. I’m not sure what my first was; we had GEM on an Amstrad at home, so probably that, but we got Windows at home in maybe 1993 so I was familiar with it before high school.

Anyway, I’m rambling so I’ll shut up now :)

Did a short course in computer graphics during my degree course. The colour gamut was fairly poor, the image took a week to render and came back with a set of punch cards. At school? We did binary & hex.

Remember ‘The Chip Shop’? Still got the tapes & the Basicode progs from the Netherlands. Probably overwritten but nothing to test them on. What was the TV programme that required one to make up a light sensor & stick it over a flashing blob on the screen with blutack to download software?

It was not just your school.

I first got to grips with the BBC Micro around 1987ish. Forgive lapses of memory, for it was LONG ago now.

Anyway, my first teacher was hardcore CS and expected us to write a database program capable of dealing with a dataset of around 80K. On a Beeb.

He lasted a year, and was replaced by a clueless IT teacher who explained to us in length what a “database” was, and didn’t seem to understand that we wrote one last year.
That’s about the time I helped with the running and admin of the Econet (god knows, he wasn’t up to it) and pretty much stopped going to that class. I mean, do I want to spend forty minutes learning what a video adaptor is for, or forty minutes trying to port one of Jan Vibe’s creations to assembler so it does its thing even faster?

My personal (pulled out of my backside) belief is that everybody back in the day wanted students who were technically competent, until the Tory government (hi Maggie!) realised that high school kids were better at that stuff than Uni guys, and the strong emphasis on problem solving in programming was a dangerous thing – the last thing a Tory government wants is a smart populace (plenty of current-day examples).

Problem is, you can’t have a stupid public who believe The Daily Mail and be a world leader in tech…

You have got to remember many had no computors in schools.

The ‘Antikythera Mechanism’ was some find – it showed what was possible thou’s of years ago.

(A great mind to come up with a idea – and someone to build it)

Seeing Mates on cargo ships – using mech adding machines – I sometimes wonder if these too existed long ago.

Plenty of potential customers – even BC?

How advanced were they – there is speculation that ancient Egypt has some form of electric light.

the last thing a Tory government wants is a smart populace (plenty of current-day examples).

Or NuLab, for that matter. Too damn true.

Problem is, you can’t have a stupid public who believe The Daily Mail and be a world leader in tech…

Sadly, the evidence is that that isn’t true – as long as the non-stupid, adequately educated minority is large enough, and motivated in that direction.

Does anybody remember the Whole Earth Catalog ? In the 1970s there was a similarly hippy-millennarian publication from the US, whose title I have forgotten, which was all about those fabulous new microcomputers that were going to change the world. It had little programs in BASIC and FORTH, foreshadowings of HTML (remember Dynabook?), goofy illustrations and great expectations. It was given to me as a throwout by Dana Scott when he was clearing his house prior to leaving Oxford for Carnegie Mellon. What impresses me most about this book/catalog in retrospect is the penumbra of optimism about the future: how microcomputers would get cheaper, how the days of the main-frame were numbered, how the dead hand of big-business and management would be challenged by the bright kid.

I suspect that I am one of the oldest (79) lurking on these pages, and that nobody any younger has any notion of what I am babbling on about :)-

I remember the Whole Earth Catalog. I was more involved with Alternative England and Wales because I was the Secretary of the Communes Movement when Nick Saunders was researching that, became good friends with him, and remained so for the rest of his (sadly too short) life.

I’m 11 years younger than you, and know exactly what you’re babbling about.

Does anybody remember the Whole Earth Catalog ? In the 1970s there was a similarly hippy-millennarian publication from the US, whose title I have forgotten.

Huh? Correct me if I’m wrong but I always assumed the „Whole Earth Catalogue“ was as American as Janis Joplin.
Steve Jobs famously quoted it as an inspiration.

is the penumbra of optimism about the future:

The catalogue title sounds like a health food shop inventory. ;-)

I remember those sci-fi/tech-for-kids things my mom used to get me in the 70s and early 80s were very hopeful of a bright future. By the year 2000 we’d be wearing tin foil clothing, there’d be a big wheel space station, and colonising the Moon would have been “meh, done it”.

Then we had a Shuttle disaster to remind us that Space Is Hard, the end of the ’80s when the world felt a little burned out, and the end of The Cold War so no evil nemesis to try to keep up with.

Sadly, the evidence is that that isn’t true – as long as the non-stupid, adequately educated minority is large enough,

Hmm… America and Korea take education quite seriously (US) / insanely seriously (KR). Both produce cool stuff. Both are quite involved in the tech world.

The UK never seems to take education that seriously (unless you have money), and while we have some very smart people who make amazing things (ARM, for instance); the UK are world leaders in….?

the UK are world leaders in….?

Well according to that 1978 Horizon in the link its Software we’re good at!

I can’t help feeling that isn’t the case anymore…

Medical research maybe?

America and Korea take education quite seriously

Don’t know much about Korea, but America takes education seriously for a minority — just as the UK does. And like the UK, have a stupid public who believe The Daily Mail [its US equivalent]. Yet the generation who made the UK a tech leader, who were relatively well educated, are exactly the age of the ones who read the Daily Mail; the generation who are the victims of Tory dumbing down mostly don’t.

It ain’t as simple as all that.

I always assumed the „Whole Earth Catalogue“ was as American as Janis Joplin.

I think so too. Alternative England and Wales is, unsurprisingly, English — and slightly later, and overlaps in its subject matter quite a lot.

I’m 11 years younger than you, and know exactly what you’re babbling about.

I’m 7 and I know, too, but the WEC dates from the ’60s.

The catalogue title sounds like a health food shop inventory.

The store came some years later. The catalogue was large, with a huge miscellany of articles.

I’m 7

Precocious, or what? 8~P

the WEC dates from the ’60s.

Yup. And AE&W from the 70s.

Yet the generation who made the UK a tech leader, who were relatively well educated, are exactly the age of the ones who read the Daily Mail;

If you’re talking about my generation (I’m 44), then it’s worth pointing out two differences in outlook between the US and UK.

In the US, generally, education is seen as a Good Thing. If you screw up your SATs, then it’s basically the beginning of the end. This was true in my mother’s time, and watching things like Buffy and Veronica Mars, it clearly is still important today.

At my school(s), if one was smart, one was a “clod”, a “swot”, and a dozen things too rude to write here (but basically euphemisms for sexual impropriety of the teacher kind). It was seen as “cool” to fail. People who got Bs on their test were made fun of, people who got As on their test were shunned, and people who managed to get the teacher to “throw an eppy” (and walk off in a huff) had the most friends.
When we used to live near Camberley (‘80s, early ’90s), we did the usual “make friends with the neighbours” thing, but that ground to a halt when a neighbour clocked the number of books on the bookshelves and said "I suppose you think you’re better than us". Not hello, not nice to meet you, not even a sarcastic “like to read?” but that. A little later on I spent nearly a decade in Ash. Travelled by train all over the place, but you know what? I can tell you it was a Jamaican family living next door, a keen gardener, and nice bloke. Everybody else? No idea. They weren’t interested in me, I wasn’t interested in them. To the point where a granny had a brick lobbed through her living room window at lunchtime and nobody saw a thing (my excuse, I was out – probably in Aldershot or Woking looking for the latest Acorn User or something). I preferred Guildford, but there was no direct train to it.

I understand this won’t match everybody’s experience, but I do feel that a lot of British culture celebrates failure, especially heroic failure. The whole underdog thing; plus the one that endlessly confuses a lot of Europeans, the concept of “just muddling through”.

Medical research maybe?

Would that be the "taking people’s medical information and giving it to the Americans to analyse; and then conducting an audit to say nothing’s wrong with this picture – you mean that medical research?

nobody any younger has any notion of what I am babbling on about :)-

One, perhaps, for around my generation? Who remembers the awesome looking (and awesomely expensive as ****) “Heathkit Hero” robot that featured in the back of the RS catalogues in the ‘80s? [surely can’t have been Maplin, not at that price]
The normal Hero wasn’t that impressive in specs, a 68xx processor and a few kilobtyes of memory. Could probably have built something better (and cheaper!) with a Beeb. It was the Hero 2000 that was over the top. Its main processor was an 8088 (the 8086 squished into an 8 bit bus), with something like a dozen Z80 secondary processors. Overkill much? Or just admitting that the Intel x86 interrupt latency was quite pathetic? Still, that many CPUs in one device. How very geeky!

get the teacher to “throw an eppy” (and walk off in a huff)

ha! haven’t heard that phrase in a while!

I understand this won’t match everybody’s experience, but I do feel that a lot of British culture celebrates failure,

Yep, I get that…its why we’re all so excited about Brexit…

you mean that medical research?

I was just kinda guessing based on the fact that the one positive news story I heard on my commute last week was that they’d invented a new drug in Cambridge that was going to save the world (actually can’t remember what disease they were fighting now…)

Still, that many CPUs in one device. How very geeky!

Wasn’t there a guy making a rat brain out of ARM CPUs in Manchester Uni?

I don’t think it is a particular issue with politics or the education system (for all the faults of both).

In the 1980s microcomputers were new and exciting. Those people who had access to them and the time and determination to learn, had the chance to do great things. You can understand pretty much all of the 8bit machines, and community assistance, in the days before large public networks took off, was near-zero.

If you wanted to make a machine do something, you had to learn, but it was possible to do so. The advent of consoles with cartridges, and more powerful 16 and 32 bit hardware just started to fade it all out. Then look at a Wintel PC – inaccessible in terms of learning, compared to a BBC micro.

Inaccessibility has gone up another notch with tablets and smartphones. However on the plus side, smartphones have been exciting and there has been genuine innovation in ‘apps’. But I don’t think many of these app wizards could understand the full stack of software and hardware on their phone!

We need more people to be interested in understanding it all, which is where innovations like the Pi help (though it has its issues). The government or schools cannot force that, it is up to our youngsters!

At my school(s), if one was smart, one was a “clod”, a “swot”, and a dozen things too rude to write here. It was seen as “cool” to fail. People who got Bs on their test were made fun of, people who got As on their test were shunned, and people who managed to get the teacher to “throw an eppy” (and walk off in a huff) had the most friends.

In my ‘A’ level Physics a friend and myself would listen carefully sufficient to understand the principle being taught and then muck around with the other two on our table. They failed and we passed.

We need more people to be interested in understanding it all.

The all is expanding at an accelerating rate. Computer Science was a huge and diverse subject already forty years ago.

The government or schools cannot force that,

Their attempts to do so have been counterproductive. They usually cannot see through the whizz-bang surface of glamourous novelties, as presented by journalists, to the underlying ideas that young people need to know if they are not to be fobbed off with ephemeral superficialities. Ever since Wilson’s white heat of technology nonsense, the public has been fed misleading misconceptions.

Rick’s experiences are an inditement of the UK’s deep-rooted philistinism. I am grateful that Rick’s personal qualities ennabled him to break through, but what of all the others who did not? They have been robbed of their birthright IMHO.

I am grateful that Rick’s personal qualities ennabled him to break through,

Uh… You do know what my paid employment is, right? ☺

Admittedly, by choice. I’d rather a (near) zero-stress job than to be paid more learning to hate the one thing I enjoy (I was a code monkey, briefly, it was terrible and soul destroying).

We need more people to be interested in understanding it all,

Computers are only “hard” because of the complexity inherent in modern devices, squeezed into something the size of a thumb nail, running an operating system with an insane number of libraries.

There’s no reason why a machine like a BBC Micro or Spectrum couldn’t be used to introduce computing. They function in fundamentally the same way, they are simple enough that one can draw the memory map and then diagram the logic gates and then probe around inside the machine with a ’scope to actually see it working. Enlightenment comes with understanding and understanding comes with observation and experimentation.

It’ll also teach one how to do mathematics in a different way (64 bit long division of floating point numbers on a machine that’s only capable of adding and subtracting eight bit values? It’s doable!) and also how to be frugal – don’t allocate twenty megabytes for a bit array “because you can”. And finally understand that all the fancy trendy programming paradigms are ultimately eventually expressed in code the processor actually executes. Understanding how that works helps unlock some of the mystery of the computer. You can even, if you are really into it, delve deeper into understanding how things like binary addition work at transistor level, to realise how those electrical pulses here become those other pulses there.

Or you can be content to think of it as an opaque box of “magic” that lets you write fart apps…

Their attempts to do so have been counterproductive.

As, I’m sure, this much maligned piece of $#!+ gibberish undoubtedly was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMOqpxlW66E