The Computer Literacy Project

Lots of things have changed for the better in the UK since I was young. It is no longer considered acceptable to abuse somebody because of their sex, their religion or the colour of their skin. Yet it seems still acceptable to abuse somebody for being clever . Most abuse stems from fear, ignorance or lack of self-confidence.

There’s no reason why a machine like a BBC Micro or Spectrum couldn’t be used to introduce computing.

I agree. There are a couple of people I know of in my village who tinker with old cars. The modern car is too complex and has been designed to require proprietary tools, so that nobody but the manufacturer can squeeze a penny out of repairing it. Some parallel with computers maybe? I never got my hands dirty myself – Swarfega did dreadful things to my skin – but I would have liked to.

You do know what my paid employment is, right? :-)

That was not the break through I meant :).

It is no longer considered acceptable to abuse somebody because of their sex, their religion or the colour of their skin.

Religion – not so. Remember that every time the news uses the phrase “Islamic terrorist” (we never used the phrase “Catholic terrorist” in the eighties, did we?). Religion is still a target for abuse, all that’s happened is the goalposts have moved. Sex has arguably been replaced by nationality. Nobody much cares who has sex with who when it’s easier to fear foreigners. Skin colour? Would the “migrant crisis” be a “crisis” if the migrants were, you know, white?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41648865

Some parallel with computers maybe?

It’s the way things have gone. Remember “the cool old guy”¹ who used to make some extra cash repairing televisions in his garden shed? Now it’s increasingly difficult to even get the things open, never mind repair anything. Signals aren’t simple and possible to be fed into a ‘scope, it’s digital with encryption². Soon fridges and flamin’ light bulbs will be the same… :-/

¹ One such old guy taught me most of what I knew about how teletext works.

² The number of "BDRip"s says to me that all this encryption crap is useful only to those selling hardware and does little to stop piracy…

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

You’re thinking of ARM designer Prof Steve Furber’s SpiNNaker project. See Manchester University APT Group page and Wikipedia