1986 film - messaging on computers in high school

Alun · 27-04-2014 03:54PM

At secondary school in England way back in 1974 we had a deal with the local college whereby we wrote our programs by filling in little squares on punched cards with a soft pencil, 2B or something. These cards were then read by a special machine that had little wire contacts on it that could read the pencil marks, and which then punched out the 'real' punch cards that were fed into the card reader and then run. We got the printout back, usually with loads of syntax errors, either due to our own mistakes, or because the machine that read them was rubbish, corrected and then resubmitted. Trouble was we only had this class once a week, so it could take several weeks to successfully write even the most basic of programs. Great fun

I'm fairly certain it was an ICL machine we were using, but the language remains a mystery. I suspect it was something simple concocted up for the schools computer project, possibly a BASIC like langauge.

Arthur Beesley · 27-04-2014 03:56PM

BBDBB wrote: »

would anyone like a go on my Jet Set Willy?

Jet Set Gertie, FTW.

Badly Drunk Boy · 27-04-2014 04:11PM

Birroc wrote: »

Why did you need an alias back then?

Why wouldn't you have an alias? Why do you have one now?

I got my first two e-mail accounts when I started college in 1990. One had my name because it was generated by the university, and the second I could choose myself.

I just googled it and got loads of hits, mainly from music and telly newsgroups.

Freddie Dodge · 27-04-2014 04:27PM

We had a computer in the house in 1984. I find this amazing today given that where I come from we got electricity in 1978, when I was 5. Fairly unique situations both of them.

NIMAN · 27-04-2014 04:29PM

Played REVS on the BBC Micro.

dxhound2005 · 27-04-2014 04:32PM

Freddie Dodge wrote: »

We had a computer in the house in 1984. I find this amazing today given that where I come from we got electricity in 1978, when I was 5. Fairly unique situations both of them.

Fairly unique does not compute.

ceadaoin. · 27-04-2014 04:48PM

In primary school we had one of those BBC computers and got to play a game called Granny's Garden about once every 3 months. Loved that game.

Computer class in secondary school in the mid 90s consisted of typing up fake letters and using mail merge. No internet

Frosty McSnowballs · 27-04-2014 04:51PM

Oregan Trail ftw!

With all these dead rabbits, my family won't starve and die.

Archeron · 27-04-2014 04:57PM

ceadaoin. wrote: »

In primary school we had one of those BBC computers and got to play a game called Granny's Garden about once every 3 months. Loved that game.

Computer class in secondary school in the mid 90s consisted of typing up fake letters and using mail merge. No internet

Haha, I remember grannies garden. The whole class bunched around one computer while one student typed in the command. Only to be killed by a witch

I also remember an "art" programme in which the cursor was called turtle. You would type turtle 50 and it would draw a line. I thought it s funny one day to type turtle 10000000 and watch as it drew bazillions of lines up and down the screen. Then the teacher made me stay back until it was finished. It took fooking hours.

anncoates · 27-04-2014 05:03PM

Had an Atari 800XL in the house in the early to mid 80s. The games had to loaded via a tape player and had to sit there listening to this fax type sound as it loaded. Remember a game called New York City and also had Spy Hunter.

Earliest I was on computers on college was about 89 or 90. Only game was a version of Tetris (with the view above the blocks as opposed to platform) and then a few years later, Castle Wolfenstein and Doom.

harry Bailey esq · 27-04-2014 05:05PM

i got a commodore 64 for Christmas around 90/91,never used it for anything apart from games.Flimbos quest was a favourite of mine back then.Happy times

Stavros Murphy · 27-04-2014 05:18PM

We got a BBC Micro, model B in 1981 as my old one reckon they were the future and wanted us to be ahead of the curve. Sadly, I was better suited to chopping wood using my head and all it got used for was playing games, and even they were of as much interest to the sisters as a stone mattress. I remember it was £399.00 for the computer itself- a fortune. I wanted a Raleigh Burner, never mind your bleedin computer. It was the same story with a driving licence, which none of our family had ever had - I was in there on the dot of 17 doing my test. My ma was a believer in being an early adopter, and we were adopting stuff, like it or not.

RayCon · 27-04-2014 05:19PM

BBC Micro ... a game where you had to manage the crops and maintain the flood defences of a village to keep the villagers alive. Seasons would pass and floods and famines would occur..... can't remember the name

FatherTed · 27-04-2014 05:23PM

Was in secondary school in the mid 80s in Galway and Digital had set up a network between all the secondary schools. So yes we were able to message and "chat" with the other schools on the old Digital VT 52 and VT100 terminals.

ceadaoin. · 27-04-2014 05:23PM

Archeron wrote: »

Haha, I remember grannies garden. The whole class bunched around one computer while one student typed in the command. Only to be killed by a witch

I also remember an "art" programme in which the cursor was called turtle. You would type turtle 50 and it would draw a line. I thought it s funny one day to type turtle 10000000 and watch as it drew bazillions of lines up and down the screen. Then the teacher made me stay back until it was finished. It took fooking hours.

Ha yes the witch, how did I forget about that. Obviously it was too traumatic for my young mind!

Just googled it, it looks like teletext but probably advanced for its day

http://m.pcgamer.com/2011/01/22/crap-shoot-grannys-garden/

DainBramage · 27-04-2014 05:38PM

TheNumpty wrote: »

Making designs in Logo on the BBC micro computers

My school also had a few BBC Micros. We were occasionally allowed to use them to play a game called 'grannys garden'.:)

I remember the 'computer room' was specially fitted with a steel door complete with several massive dead-bolts to protect this highly valuable equipment.

DainBramage · 27-04-2014 05:41PM

ceadaoin. wrote: »

In primary school we had one of those BBC computers and got to play a game called Granny's Garden about once every 3 months. Loved that game.

Computer class in secondary school in the mid 90s consisted of typing up fake letters and using mail merge. No internet

just noticed your comment, also played this game:)

bumper234 · 27-04-2014 05:43PM

I remember when my older brother got a digital watch that played the James Bond theme and i thought that was cool. Later he got a watch with a calculator and i thought that was cool.... when he got a walkman (google it you young ****ers).i thought this was the dogs bollix and the world was soooooooo cool..

Nforce · 27-04-2014 05:54PM

Played Harrier Attack on the C64 in my school, and ran useless short code having input data for what seemed like hours. Thought I was the shiz with my Texaco freebee radio watch too!

27-04-2014 05:57PM

Titzon Toast wrote: »

1989/90 I think it would have been for me. Something called logos or something similar, where you drew pictures by giving commands to a little icon on the screen telling in to "turn 90 degrees and move forward ten steps and then stop" to draw yourself a little house.
Exciting times!

I remember that!

Archeron wrote: »

Haha, I remember grannies garden. The whole class bunched around one computer while one student typed in the command. Only to be killed by a witch

I also remember an "art" programme in which the cursor was called turtle. You would type turtle 50 and it would draw a line. I thought it s funny one day to type turtle 10000000 and watch as it drew bazillions of lines up and down the screen. Then the teacher made me stay back until it was finished. It took fooking hours.

And those! :eek:

theKillerBite · 27-04-2014 06:05PM

c. 1992 we had a computer class every week in primary school. Mostly played Lemmings & text based games. We had email penpals with an American school, one of them asked me if we had any computers/tv's in Ireland??

suicide_circus · 27-04-2014 06:06PM

Qbasic. Wish I had been a nerd and bothered with it. Probably be a millionaire now.

MarkR · 27-04-2014 06:06PM

I remember doing some drawing program with a turtle. And that carmen sandiego woman. Could never find here. We had a IBM computer at home when I was young, late 80's maybe. Had a massive dot matrix printer attached to it.

AllGunsBlazing · 27-04-2014 06:10PM

We had a single computer lab at my secondary school back in the late 80's. C64s to begin with then replaced by a brand called Wang. Yes, we got a good few laughs out of that. To be honest it wasnt taken very seriously by anyone as there were no exams for it. Played a footie game or just chatted amongst ourselves for the most part. The teacher was invariably a random sub math teacher press ganged into the job.

If only we knew what a huge role the damned things would play in our lives.

Amalgam · 27-04-2014 06:15PM

Did any school actually have the, 'hardware turtle', as opposed to just the software?

See here: http://angrytechnician.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/relic/

We were allowed to play Planetoid! (Defender clone) once in a while, well.. load it, rather than play it, as trouble would break out, soon after loading, to hog the machine..

Are I Mad · 27-04-2014 06:32PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

Qbasic. Wish I had been a nerd and bothered with it. Probably be a millionaire now.

I remember using this on a work computer. In school we had some sort of programme that we typed in for the computer to play music on a c64 in the mid 80's.

27-04-2014 07:14PM

DainBramage wrote: »

My school also had a few BBC Micros. We were occasionally allowed to use them to play a game called 'grannys garden'.:)

I remember the 'computer room' was specially fitted with a steel door complete with several massive dead-bolts to protect this highly valuable equipment.

I remember installing routers in schools and finding a classroom like that, plus all the windows were barred (to prison standard!).
I had to inform the teacher that they had also barred the fire escape! :eek:

wendell borton · 27-04-2014 07:36PM

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

We had a single computer lab at my secondary school back in the late 80's. C64s to begin with then replaced by a brand called Wang. Yes, we got a good few laughs out of that. To be honest it wasnt taken very seriously by anyone as there were no exams for it. Played a footie game or just chatted amongst ourselves for the most part. The teacher was invariably a random sub math teacher press ganged into the job.

If only we knew what a huge role the damned things would play in our lives.

Reindeer · 27-04-2014 08:33PM

In 1990 I was in a computer lab in a university on the central coast of California playing DikuMUD on a UNIX system connected to the internet.

ETA - I was also exchanging EMail with my GF in a different university. We also used the UNIX 'talk' command/interface to chat real time.

All the messaging and email stuff ya do nowadays as kids, thousands of other University students were already doing it 25+ years ago.

professore · 27-04-2014 08:38PM

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I was in Kevin St college in 89 and got to use their computer lab for a year.
No Internet as we'd know it but the BBS was cool, though mostly full of Star Wars/Trek nerds.

I must have seen you. You weren't that guy from the computer diploma course that lived in the computer lab by any chance?

1986 film - messaging on computers in high school

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