Regular Member
Joined: 23/09/2009
Location: AustraliaPosts: 76
| Posted: 10:29am 16 May 2011 |
Hey Glen
You sound like an excited kid waiting for Christmas!!
Browsing the net, I get the impression that Altronics have had over 500 orders for the kits so I guess you're not alone.
I'm surprised you haven't had more replies on this one but I think everyone is in the same boat waiting for the kits to come in. I reckon it would be a great idea to have a programming section but it would possibly need to include input/output interface circuits etc, or would this still go in the electronics section?
It was interesting to see you mention learning basic 30 yrs ago. I can remember first teaching basic in computing lessons even before that. Back then the kids had to enter their programs by putting pencil marks on optical reader cards. Each program was bundled up as a stack of cards with a rubber band around it and sent off to the Education Dept computing centre in Adelaide where the program was read and executed in their mainframe and the printouts were then sent back to the school for the kids.
As you can imagine, there were plenty of errors and some odd results returning. Most of the programs were to print "hello" and the kid's name. That was definitely computing in the stone age!!
A little while after that the school set up its own computer room with 10 or so Tandy TRS 80s networked to a hard drive. At the time there was quite a bun fight with the department computing centre over the choice of computers - their recommendation was to buy two Apples for the same money - great idea for a class of 30+ !!
Trev