'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."'"

Comments

Re:History doesn't repeat itself

[LWATCDR]

Actaually the BBC PC isn't far from the perfect embedded system trainer.
From the Wilkipedia.
"The machine included a number of extra I/O interfaces: serial and parallel printer ports; an 8-bit general purpose digital I/O port; a port offering four analogue inputs, a light pen input, and switch inputs; and an expansion connector (the "1 MHz bus") that enabled other hardware to be connected. Extra ROMs could be fitted (four on the PCB or sixteen with expansion hardware) and accessed via paged memory. An Econet network interface and a disk drive interface were available as options. All motherboards had space for the electronic components, but Econet was rarely fitted. Additionally, an Acorn proprietary interface called the "Tube" allowed a second processor to be added. Three models of second processor were offered by Acorn, based on the 6502, Z80 and 32016 CPUs. The Tube was later used in third-party add-ons, including a Zilog Z80 board and hard disk drive from Torch that allowed the BBC machine to run CP/M programs."

Four A2Ds 8 bits of GIO, and switch inputs. All available from Basic on a machine with a Floppy, Keyboard, and Monitor. Sweet.
I so wanted one of these back in the day. Too expensive and not really available in the US at the time.

Re:Probably a good idea

[spiffmastercow]

That can much more effectively be done by concentrating purely about Big O rather than hardware tweaks. Just tell them to do problems from project euler and they'll get a good appreciation for algorithm efficiency.

Re:Sounds like fun

[Nethead]

The model-T was even stranger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_T

The Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a planetary gear type billed as "three speed". In today's terms it would be considered a two speed, because one of the three speeds was actually reverse.

The Model T's transmission was controlled with three foot pedals and a lever that was mounted to the road side of the driver's seat. The throttle was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel. The left pedal was used to engage the gear. With the handbrake in either the mid position or fully forward and the pedal pressed and held forward the car entered low gear. When held in an intermediate position the car was in neutral, a state that could also be achieved by pulling the floor-mounted lever to an upright position. If the lever was pushed forward and the driver took his foot off the left pedal, the Model T entered high gear, but only when the handbrake lever was fully forward. The car could thus cruise without the driver having to press any of the pedals. There was no separate clutch pedal.

The middle pedal was used to engage reverse gear, and the right pedal operated the engine brake. The floor lever also controlled the parking brake, which was activated by pulling the lever all the way back. This doubled as an emergency brake.

Re:Does that make sense ?

[xaxa]

They're A-level students, i.e. the final two years of school, ages 16-17 and 17-18. It's probably more interesting than making some crappy VB application, which is what I remember the A-level computing students doing (I didn't do the subject, I did extra maths instead -- it was much more useful for finding a place on a good CS course at university).

Re:Au contraire

[Sarten-X]

And yet, when that routine needs to run three billion times per execution, it completes a few hours faster than a slightly less-efficient algorithm! That's a significant improvement for any company today working with large-scale data. A lesser programmer simply wouldn't be able to do the job.