[Coco] Thoughts on modern computers (sort of off topic)

[Patrick Wilson]

Remember the old days when you considered how to slice up control phrases to use individual bits to control actions on memory mapped machines???   That was when a 16k was "a lot of real estate"!  We did real tight and very carefully designed code back then...


From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
Sent: Thursday, February 2, 2012 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Thoughts on modern computers (sort of off topic)

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Louis Ciotti <lciotti1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Like I said before....  There is no Computer available today where
> you can take a totally green person, and have them writing code faster than
> the CoCo or similar machine of its day.
>

This is true, and I wonder what effect it will have on CS long term as
those of us who do actually have some concept of what the code we
write is making the hardware do become more and more rare.

It is an unavoidable fact that today's PCs are much, much more complex
than the machines of the CoCo era.  That the average person can use
these devices at all is a testament to how good our software really
is.  However, to expect a programming environment that is as simple to
learn as the CoCo just isn't practical when you've got something so
much more complicated going on inside the box.

If somebody wanted to learn programming today, I think the the CoCo is
just as good a tool as it ever was, in no small part because it is a
simple machine.  I doubt you'd lure many kids into the world of code
with one today though.  Making your name appear on a TV screen just
isn't as magical as it used to be.  For someone young or old who is
truly interested to learn programming though, I'd think a CoCo would
serve nicely.

$0.02
-Aaron

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