Slashdot Mirror
'Retro Programming' Teaches Using 1980s Machines
Death Metal Maniac writes "A few lucky British students are taking a computing class at the National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) at Bletchley Park using 30-year-old or older machines. From the article: '"The computing A-level is about how computers work and if you ask anyone how it works they will not be able to tell you," said Doug Abrams, an ICT teacher from Ousedale School in Newport Pagnell, who was one of the first to use the machines in lessons. For Mr Abrams the old machines have two cardinal virtues; their sluggishness and the direct connection they have with the user. "Modern computers go too fast," said Mr Abrams. "You can see the instructions happening for real with these machines. They need to have that understanding for the A-level."'"
That could teach them a thing or two about commerce and trade, I suppose.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How will the student then apply his knowledge to modern languages such as Java, C# ?
It's really pretty simple. After seeing what a computer can do with code intimately optimized for the machine it's running on, they will be exposed to the status quo in Java or C# and their heads will explode. Problem solved on our end!
Amongst our weaponry are such things as...I'll start over.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Or you could just fire up a terminal ... Oh, Windows. Never mind.
I just dusted off a couple of C-64s, an Amiga 500, a Sun 3/50 and an Apple IIc the other day. They were filthy. And on top of the box of cables I needed to get at.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
You don't understand - this is Bletchley Park, you know, the codebreakers during WW2. Old habits die hard. They *could* tell you, but then they'd have to kill you.