I recently did a series of posts about computers that I had used. One of those was the BBC Micro that came out of a project to get people using computers. Now the BBC has made the Computer Literacy Project archives accessible online. This includes lots of TV shows they made. These give a great insight into what was going on back then. A lot of it is very simplified as you have to appreciate that most people knew nothing about computers and wouldn't have used one. There were no smartphones back then.
The archive site makes use of the jsbeeb emulator that runs in your browser so you can see some of the software that was part of this project.
I watched a lot of these shows back then as I was fascinated with the idea of computers long before I had my own. I think I was about 15 when I saved up to buy my first one and had lots of fun with it. I really regret that I don't still have it. The nearest I have is a 3d printed model made by @steddyman. I could put a Raspberry Pi in that and run emulators.
We take computers for granted these days, but they were pretty rare when I was a kid. I vaguely remember going to my dad's office where they had a computer centre with big tape drives and massive printers. The tapes used little plastic hoops that we could get as toys. We also had plenty of the stripey paper to draw on. I didn't get to use a computer until I went to upper school at 13 and then we had to share one in a class.
I envy the kids of today, but I'm also glad I got to see this technology develop. It's hard for the kids to imagine that we would dream of computers that could hold the equivalent of one MP3 song on their hard drive, but we didn't use such big files back then and the computers couldn't play real audio (not to be confused with RealAudio). Playing actual video was the stuff of science fiction.
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
All hail the mighty micro!
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My first computer was an Acorn Atom. State of the art with a 6502 processor and 12K RAM! And you could program it in assembler also!
I still have it, even though collectors are offering ridiculous sums of money for it.
Is is nice to have been there from the beginning, yes, it gives a nice insight into how things actually work and developed.
The Atom was the 'parent' of the Beeb. I think it was even available as a kit. I'm not sure if I ever used one. You should hang onto it as a future antique.
I do remember soldering it together, yes 8-). I don't think I will ever sell it.
Started working my way through the shows on the Computer Literacy Project. Pretty much spot on with many of the predictions.
Only geeks had those 'computer things' in the early to mid 80's. I was one of them, and I am so glad of it too.
We had a single computer in our classroom when I was in elementary school, but even then we still learned to type on typewriters in high school. When we finally got a PC lab at our high school the teacher kept checking with me to make sure he was teaching correctly. We had a PC at home, so I was pretty well versed with them as opposed to the Apple environment at school.
Well my first computer was PENTIUM I with 512MB RAM and 20GB HARD DRIVE
I was 7 years old then and used to play MARIO AND SONIC BROTHERS GAME so much
I miss those days
and now i have a Gaming Pc made by myself xD
It was a long time before I had a Windows PC. Mine was a Pentium 3. See my previous posts for more details.
Isn't it funny how clunky old computers look now?
It's the same with all sorts of technology, but computers change so fast
Great technology friend. The picture of small keyboard is nice.