Comments on: More Science Week Stuff

By: conor

conor — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:08:52 +0000

I mentioned the XO/OLPC and I wonder if it could be the ZX Spectrum for the new millenium? Not just for developing countries but for all. A large part of it is written in Python which we use on LouderVoice and is a great first language for kids to learn.

An alternative would be to teach kids about Mashups and web technologies so they could easily build brand new applications e.g. off the back of their Bebo friend list and Google Maps.

By: Dermot

Dermot — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:16:43 +0000

Conor

RPG and Cobol all gone by the end of the decade. I wonder about the change and its speed. Very different course. Commercial apps with Modula 2 now theres a novel idea (bit like the person I know who recommended Smalltalk over Visual Basic for in house development). Theoretical assembly language sounds as bad as the real thing (we had two courses in assembler that I hated).

And Fortran. I spent part of second year supervising Engineering Labs in Fortran (having to spend the night before with a textbook and a login to system figuring out how it worked)

Now I’m getting nostalgic

Dermot

By: James Galvin » Blog Archive » Science Week’s Carrot-Dangling does not Address “Root” Problems (I swear that was unintentional)

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:19:22 +0000

[...] buzz that lasts a week, and at best, a few people walk away knowing a little bit more about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, with no greater appreciation for [...]

By: conor

conor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:50:44 +0000

Yup, mine is in the attic and still worked the last time I checked.

By: pat phelan

pat phelan — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:31:54 +0000

I still have mine, fond memories of manually tuning the pitch on the tape recorder to load programs

By: Donncha’s Wednesday Links at Holy Shmoly!

Donncha’s Wednesday Links at Holy Shmoly! — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:52:58 +0000

[...] gets nostalgic about the Speccy for Science Week. Damien has more posts about great [...]

By: conor

conor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:34:10 +0000

You could always tell the Comp Sci people in my first job. They were the ones trying to build commercial apps using Modula 2

By: conor

conor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:27:11 +0000

The guide I had to Comp Sci UCD when I was in 4th year secondary school (’84-’85) definitely had Cobol and I’m pretty sure it had RPG cos I had to look up what it was.

Yeah we were scourged with Fortran in Eng. We also had a theoretical assembly language that we had to write programs in. Grrrrr. There were some Z80 practicals in final year and I taught myself C in the same year and never looked back.

By: Dermot Casey

Dermot Casey — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:03:47 +0000

Conor

on what planet was RPG and Cobol on the Comp Sci syllabus. I did Comp Sci in UCD (around the same time I’d think/) It was Pascal, C, C++, Lisp, Prolog and other interesting things language wise. You engineers did Fortran for gods sake

Dermot

By: conor

conor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:58:42 +0000

I doubt they’ll be monitoring but I think it should count. Google picks up Jaikus pretty quickly so hopefully they have some alerts set there.

By: Bernie Goldbach

Bernie Goldbach — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:46:00 +0000

I wonder how they’re hoovering the responses. IrishBlogs.ie has picked up the meme but if someone blogs about the answer on Jaiku or Flickr, will it count as an entry?

By: Damien Mulley » Blog Archive » Science Week Ireland blogging competition Day 1 entries

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:22:18 +0000

[...] Conor on the ZX Spectrum. [...]