On: The BASIC Issue with Retro Computers

[antirez]

I was less than 10 years old in the sea house we rented in August here in Sicily, 1986 or alike. ZX Spectrum connected to the TV, and me working to make a point moving with the arrows on the screen, a problem that was for me unsolvable. Then, suddenly, I realized that I could updated a var in terms of itself: X = X + 1. A whole new world opened in front of my eyes.

[stevekemp → antirez]

Back then computers came with real manuals and tutorials.

My family bought a 48k ZX Spectrum for Christmas one year, and the tape-deck didn't work. So no games for my sisters and I. Instead I started programming via the orange programming guide/documentation. My sisters lost interest until we could get a working cassette player a few days later.

From BASIC to z80 machine code - again via the documentation - was a great start.

[antirez → stevekemp]

Yeah... there was no internet, and in my case, no local group of users, so either the manual or it was impossible to use it :-)

[DanitaBaires → antirez]

And don't forget to overwrite the old dot after you draw the new one :) (was it OVER or INVERSE?)

[crististm → DanitaBaires]

OVER; INVERSE was used to swap INK and PAPER :)))