A Tribute to the Compucolor II (2013) | Hacker News Reader

A Tribute to the Compucolor II (2013)

compucolor.org

37 pointssusam32 comments

Compucolor! That 8-bit, retro computer... I've never heard of!

Discovering old obscure platforms like this is really a treat. It's like a peek into an alternate universe of computing. What did people do with these? Did they use them for games? Things like inventory and payroll? Solving engineering problems? Getting online with like CompuServe? Did their users communicate with each other? Was there a boutique industry for software?

Of course we know all about these things for the "winners", your Apples, Commodores, and Sinclairs. But what was the "scene" like for the Compucolors and Videobrains? The ones that maybe moved a few tens of thousands of units?

There are so many might-have-beens it's almost insane. The one I drooled over in my youth was the Heathkit H11, a DEC LSI-11/23 packaged as a Heathkit. Since my high school had an 11/34, it would have been a good fit, but common sense prevailed and my dad got an Apple II instead (as all his coworkers had them as well).

In practice, there was enough in common between BASIC-PLUS and Applesoft that you could mostly treat the Apple's BASIC as a subset.

I had one of these as a child.

They were awesome.

I still think there is a place for basic-with-linenumbers for teaching beginners.

One of the most awesome things about it was that when you switched it on it just powered up and was a computer. It dropped you straight into a prompt.

I think that's one of the big features of old 8-bit micros that I'm saddest to see is gone. You turn them on and start programming. Today, you don't need to program a computer, it comes loaded with things to do, many of them already running, some that may work against you... and it has an app store full of other such things! But back then, computers were for programming like pencils were for writing with. Writing and then running programs was what you did with a computer. Sure, you could load someone else's program... but you had to tell the system to load it before it could... even exist in the computer's memory.

Any BASIC which lacks user-defined named subroutines (i.e. real functions, not DEF FN) is a terrible language, especially for beginners:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35220605

The point in BASIC shouldn't be to really teach programming, but just give a kid the thrill of being able to type in something and seeing a computer do it after typing 'RUN'.

You don't need named subroutines for that, at all.

Some BASICs did have named functions. Reportedly, The BBC Micro one was an early example, and later BASICs on, say, Atari ST, Amiga and later BASICs on MS-DOS all had them.

Looking at your comment, I think it's signifiant that primitive BASIC (from the 1960s to 1980s) implementations very effectively empowered many computing novices to create small to medium sized programs and games on timesharing systems and microcomputers.

Original BASIC was essentially a more user-friendly 1956 FORTRAN, but timeshared, interactive BASIC terminals beat Fortran punched card decks, and BASIC was more accessible than assembly language for microprocessors but still ran in 8KB. Most importantly, it seems that for many people BASIC enkindled a love of computing (as can be seen in many HN comments.)

You're right though that large and composite programs benefit from modularity and named, multiline, reentrant functions. And BBC BASIC seems like it was an impressive system. In an alternate reality, I wonder what would have happened if BASIC and Tiny BASIC had been based on another language (e.g. Lisp, which had history at Dartmouth) and Bill Gates had implemented a version for the Altair. (Note there was later a muLISP/Microsoft LISP that ran in 20KB.)

JavaScript seems to be as ubiquitous as BASIC once was, and is a modular and scalable language used by novices and professionals alike. But there just isn't the push to programming that "boot to BASIC" systems delivered, or the pull to create your own programs or web sites, since there are millions of existing ones that you can use.

> I wonder what would have happened if BASIC and Tiny BASIC had been based on another language

I have sometimes¹ wondered this about Forth and Occam; both of which were used by some microcomputers at the time.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17279025

Tricycles don't make good mountain bikes and real professionals use motorbikes, cars, boats or planes.

But I'd still say they're an OK choice for toddlers.

I agree with you that writing anything significant (comfortably) requires more than BASIC gives and you need to move on to something more substantial pretty quickly.

In my case the beginning of my path was:

ROM basic on a Compucolor. GWBasic on a XT PC. Turbo Pascal. Quick C/Turbo C.

A bit of assembly thrown in in between (think more Debug than MASM).

Edit: added my path

BASIC can perfectly well have named user-defined functions. Some BASICs had them, and at some point in time, all BASICs started to have them. If you want to use BASIC to teach newbie programmers, use one which has them.

Don't forget a borrow checker and probably lambdas too. :)

BASIC - original BASIC - was designed to get people programming computers for fun and work, with little or no weight given to understanding 'computer science'. After a long career devoted to the latter, I respond 'pfooey!' to that.

Have you ever tried to write a BASIC program for any practial purpose? I have. It’s an excercise in mental fortitude, trying to remember whatever GOSUB 11600 meant, and what global variables were used as input and which ones were altered as an effect of calling the subroutine.

Named user-defined functions is essential for any program longer than a screenful of text.

I wrote business software back when people did such things in BASIC. It was no big deal.

Firstly, you are not user “pinewurst”, who equated my want for user-defined functions to wanting a borrow checker and lambdas. Secondly, you presumably wrote “business software” as an older, experienced, programmer? The difficulty arises when one has learnt BASIC as a young, new programmer, and has no conceptual framework of what abstractions are to help.

User pinewurst remembers writing fairly complex games in BASIC from 13 until he switched to the tiny miracle that was Turbo Pascal. I’m not debating the value of those abstractions, but they’re hardly essential for building an enthusiastic programming mindset, especially when I think retrospectively.

I remember a conversation with someone who insisted that no one should be playing songs on the guitar until they first memorized all of the scales. I’m just strongly advocating building joy and a feeling of capability before anything else.

Please don’t mistake me for someone having merely theoretical objections. I wrote BASIC code in the 1980s; both games and utility software. It is precisely because I did those things that I object to any BASIC lacking functions. The BASIC I used lacked functions, and I remember it being very difficult to do what I can now call abstractions and subroutines. This would have been vastly more easy if the BASIC I used had had user-defined proper functions.

I'm not underestimating your objections by labeling them theoretical. We just have (respectfully) differing opinions on pedagogy.

On the other end, I really can't stand Scratch as being distant enough from real programming to make the leap difficult (as seen by my son and fellow students).

Firstly, you are not user “pinewurst”

And neither are you. Why are you speaking for someone else, much less a stranger on the internet?

you presumably wrote “business software” as an older, experienced, programmer?

No, your presumption is wrong. I specified "business software" because business software of the era was typically more complex than other software, and thus required more GOTOs and other conventions that the previous commenters have stated are problematic.

Why did you reply to a question clearly asked directly to the post I replied to?

> No, your presumption is wrong.

Fair enough. So it was “no big deal” for you. But functions clearly have value, since every language since that time has added them as a language feature. And I claim that, barring the occasional genius like you, most people (including myself at that time) actually need the language support in order to be able to get used to building abstractions in ever larger programs.

It's like that saying about cameras. The best BASIC is the one you have.

Oh, sure. But I would not today go and write gushingly about how wonderful a camera the Brownie was. Because it objectively wasn’t. It was great for other reasons, but it certainly was never itself a wonderful camera, even for its time.

I remember seeing one at a computer store and being totally envious as a Commodore PET owner. I continue to be impressed with the ethos of Kemeny and Kurtz.

Those lines weren't meant to help beginners but as a way to order statements in the absence of an editor.

Somewhat related, and with a great top comment:

The Compucolor 8001 (1976) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8391344 - Sept 2014 (6 comments)

I spent SO. MUCH. TIME. in computer stores (yes, they were a thing) as a kid in the 80's, and the Compucolor was a favorite. The keys with different colors! Everything was opinionated and geeky. And hardly any demos existed, so the computers were wide open to experiment with.

My dad was the science/math teacher at the small rural high school (a boarding school even) I attended in the 70s. I remember that we had a bunch of bake sales to raise money to purchase a Compucolor II (IIRC we chose it because it had a built in floppy drive which was an add-on for the Apple II). When we finally got the computer it was in a large closet of the science room. My dad let me have the keys to the computer room anytime I wanted so myself and a few other nerds could go over to hack on games in the evenings. We were writing a Monopoly game as I recall.

My Dad had two Compucolor 8001s when I was a kid. One he used as his work machine, and the other as a "backup" I used. They felt very advanced for the time (early 80s) and I learned BASIC programming on them, drawing colored lines on the screen using the light pen as my first program. All the ports on the back were 25-pin ports and I learned a little bit about electrical interfaces from my Dad when I fried his Compucolor by plugging the floppy drive unit into the keyboard port.

I had a class at Georgia Tech in the early '80s that used these. I even found my Compucolor formatted 5.25" floppy drive that had my project on it, a graphics library written in basic. I'd love to get the files off of that floppy, either with one of the machines or a Kyroflux.

There’s an email address on the site.

I own alot of vintage computers but this is one I have never even seen for sale.

Much of my nostalgia for vintage machines has faded but I still have a twinge for this one.

I first saw one some time in the 1970's when I was < 10 years old - magic.

This is awesome. I had no idea this machine existed.

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