Comments on: Remembering: The BBC Micro

By: Farrell McGovern

Farrell McGovern — Sat, 28 May 2011 23:52:00 +0000

I was lucky in that the computer lab I was doing co-op work in was one of the first in Canada to get LOGO, and the Floor Turtle. I remember that there was a slight bug in the first versions of the software, and I went into the driver and added a fudge factor so that "REPEAT 4 [FD 50 RT 90]" would actually draw a square…which the initial software wouldn't do.

By: Kieran Simkin

Kieran Simkin — Sat, 28 May 2011 19:12:00 +0000

Logo was good, it was my first programming language at the age of about 8. Now I write code every day.

I think the most important thing I learned from logo was the use of loops – to draw simple shapes and letters you could write a list of instructions one after the other, but if you wanted to draw curves or any interesting kind of pattern you had to use a loop – and of course with loops comes the concept of variables (you need somewhere to store a loop counter).

Logo may have been nothing to do with Acorn, but I think most people (in England at least) experienced it first through the version that ran on the BBC Micro, or later on the A3000s that my school had in every classroom. My school did actually buy the robotic turtle to go with it, I remember playing with it on the floor of our classroom. Great fun.

I guess if you wanted to do something like this these days, Lego Mindstorms would be the obvious choice. I can't wait till my son's old enough that I can play with it with him :)

By: Farrell McGovern

Farrell McGovern — Sat, 28 May 2011 15:31:00 +0000

The Terrapin floor turtle and the language LOGO were not designed for the BBC Micro…they were designed by a group at MIT, working around the ideas of Seymour Papert, I used to teach LOGO using the Apple ][+ and //e with the Terrapin floor turtle. But LOGO was so much more than turtle graphics. It was derived from LISP…in fact, one description of LOGO I heard was that it was LISP without all the brackets! So it was very powerful at dealing with lists and strings, and could do some powerful AI type processing.

By: Kieran Simkin

Kieran Simkin — Sat, 28 May 2011 15:17:00 +0000

I grew up with the BBC Micro too, loved it (and had free access to all the educational software too because my dad worked for an educational software company) – Still have a lot of nostalgia for the past, Acorn really deserved success but sadly lost out to inferior but cheaper competitors. Often the way of it :(

By: Wind Up Lantern

Wind Up Lantern — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:24:00 +0000

Nice read.

By: Wind Up Lantern

Wind Up Lantern — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:24:00 +0000

Nice read.

By: pixonu

pixonu — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:44:00 +0000

I remember Granny's Garden being the first game I ever played on a "computer"! Good memories from Primary School :)

Great Article.

By: pixonu

pixonu — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:44:00 +0000

I remember Granny’s Garden being the first game I ever played on a “computer”! Good memories from Primary School :)

Great Article.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Hours wasted on Twin Kingdom Valley on both my Acorn Electron and the schools BBC B, always got stuck trying to get my virtual self down a virtual crack in the ground, god damn text adventures….lol

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Hours wasted on Twin Kingdom Valley on both my Acorn Electron and the schools BBC B, always got stuck trying to get my virtual self down a virtual crack in the ground, god damn text adventures….lol