"Just one best-selling game series, Tomb Raider made by British company Eidos has had sales of over 35 million"
Little bit disingenuous, that - I mean, Rockstar might be a US company but their Edinburgh studio (I thought it was Dundee, but wikipedia says Edi) was responsible for Grand Theft Auto, among others.
Anyway, I think this misses the point. Sure, previous generations had to learn how to code because they could only afford basic hardware - but it takes an appreciation of gameplay and narrative to create a good game, not a knowledge of Perl. Or whatever. It's a teaching problem, not a hardware one. If it's a problem at all, which I doubt. I mean, we teach millions of people to drive but we don't fret over the fact that this doesn't lead to more people becoming mechanics.
OK, but knowing how to design new hardware and drivers for said h/w is rarely a skill people are tought at school. (I don't want to make this a British Isles / England thing. I'm thinking UK PLC).
While it is true that there's much more diversity in skills (in the past, the games programmer had to know low level graphics, game-play, sound, music, art work etc whereas nowadays huge teams of people with disparate skills each do their bit), there's still a need to understand h/w at a very low level, if only to make *better* stuff without the limitations of current h/w (remember, this is concentration on h/w YET to be developed by the kids who are starting primary school now). Sure, you could sit back and wait to find out what other country offers-up for you to use - but what of the fairly huge market of graphics/sound/motherboard/silicon which we already have (Creative, NVida, Inmos (who?)!)
Sure, games is one market, but h/w, firmware, devices and their drivers... there are skills that probably can't be tought - you have to have an appreciation of them on another level. A whole bunch of other stuff (graphics cards, drivers) are designed in the UK by people who didn't just attend lectures and do their course-work, they had to mess around in the dirt to gain them skills. My courses were made up of folk from two very easily identifiable sets - Those going into banking (Databases, SQL, COBOL!), some going into Science (FORTRAN), and a bunch more turned on by the stuff that makes the rest possible (6502, 68000, ARM, occam, Bresenhams line and Circle algorithms). I think this article's concentrating on them.
For example, years ago I worked in a small Surrey town, with some very bright H/w, Firmware, Software designers - many from the local University.
Recently I required some h/w to be developed, so I contacted the Uni to find out if any BSc/PHD students wanted to help ... sadly they now only concentrate on courses for job skills (Banking/Commerce Databases, Perl, web design...) - They do have h/w developers (they're developing some pretty kicking electric automotive products), but they didn't have a course for them skills anymore!
I think it is like "ordinary" literacy - there are those who will only ever read Jane & John books (or the newspaper equivalent The Sun), and there will be those who want to read War and Peace in Russian, or Cicero or Chaucer in the original, or will endlessly debate Salman Rushdie.
I take your point, Andrew - I agree that there's no better way of learning how something like computer hardware works than by footling around with it. My concern, I guess, is with the approach taken here to try and motivate kids. In the early days, when I was laboriously transcribing games out of computer magazines, it was possible to create a home-made game which was nearly as good as the professional games around. thus, there was a degree of kudos with your peers. There was a necessity to program in a low-level language to get what you wanted. And that's my point - it's all about what you can achieve, it's about producing something impressive - that's what kids want. That's why I think this raspberry pi thing misses the point - because it only has an input for a keyboard, and an output for a screen. That's fine, but it's very one-dimensional. I'd rather spend the money on a boxload of Arduinos. IMHO, that would give far more opportunities for impressive results, and that's what will hook the kids in. Then they can start to dig deeper on their own.
I think see what you (both) mean. Interestingly (and Peter'll back me on this, I'm sure) is that I've always found it more impressive to get a lot out of nothing, rather than something "just" really impressive because no-one else has done it.
It's almost a shame they put a proper processor like the ARM on board the Pi.
My evidence - Elite on BBC Micro - (for pity's sake, it didn't even have a sensible sound generator like the AY-38910), it had a small 8 bit processor and 32K for RAM in total!
When I saw the C64/Atari/Amiga demos & games I thought, "Cool. someone's been bothered to read the manual on the sound and graphics processors" (I wasn't too impressed with Elite's split video-mode screen, nor the "game" but how they squeezed so much out)
The problem is, only people who are truly interested in programming will actually get anything out of it, and the chances are they would have gravitated towards a related career anyway.
I think what really needs to be worked on is peoples attitudes towards computers and IT in general. Encouraging kids to develop critical thinking skills while using a computer would be infinitely more useful than learning how to do a powerpoint presentation.
No, I think the split screen partof Elite was prettydamn impressive, but I think the neat algorithms to ensure consistency in naming and ecosystems in the different galaxies in Elite were damn clever.
Meh, "just" and Timer IRQ flipping between register settings (I think the video controller only had 16 registers, and not all of the values changed). (OK, the timing was a bit clever ;) - oh, and arranging 2 sets of drawing algos specific to each screenmem region) - Now, if they'd split the screen verically, I'd havebeen impressed :)
Yes, like using the MOS ROM's contents as a pseudo-random number generator (for the info about the ecosys). Anyhoo, like I said, not the game... the concepts, and making people think "How the hell did they do that?" Does technical kudos stand for much these days?
Tech cred only stands for much when the people observing know that whatever it is you did took so much effort. Then again, they usually already know your value already, so you don't particularly need to score points with them in the first place - you know what you're doing and they know you know what you're doing.
It's easy making your sibling/relative/godson say 'wow' by displaying a message saying 'hello, world' or making a game of snake for them to play because the last version they downloaded contained a virus. The hard bit is devising and coding an elegant solution to a complex problem that the veterans can't be bothered recoding themselves (then not break anything that was dependant on whatever kludges were implemented in the first place)...
But when you get to that point, you don't particularly need the pat on the back, you're just satisfied the problem has been given the correct solution (and you haven't become depressed despite realising the original solution was in FORTRAN 77 and you were only recently given approval to move to FORTRAN 90 and even then you got growled at if you declared an integer variable with something not starting with the letters I, J, K, L, M or N and you're very much aware this would be written considerably better in another language).
Froggy, I've missed you! :) I think the art was to make something do what it wasn't designed to do.... and do it really well. The "hacker" site I frequent tend to bend stuff (e.g. make Roomba and a SpeakNspell combination that apologies when it's bumped into something when it's cleaning a room. I'd prefer it if it sang a jolly tune and watered the plants too.) - e.g. from yesterday, make a digital storage scope display a programmable pattern - BIG WHOOP! -And, BTW, if someone wrote an obfuscated C program which interpreted FORTRAN, that'd do!
(A thought occurred to me earlier - My attitude is somewhat akin to some debate going on in the UK at the mo - A veteran TV celeb, Bruce Forsythe (sp) beloved by millions has just been recognised in the Queens Birthday honours list -He got a CBE, I think. Apparently people have been putting his name forward for years, and nothing till now - I think he's in his 70's. - Well, it turns out that the powers-that-be have been avoiding Honours from being a popularity competition. School teachers, Cafe/Restaurant waiters/waitresses get them, too. Yeah, Sure Brucie's popular. Millions love him. That's his job, and he'd been well paid for it too. No What's worthy of recognition is something out of the ordinary... )
Maybe the kids just need to appreciate the amount of time and dedication it takes to make their usage of the computer easier. Encourage classrooms to develop a 'GUI Licence'. Much like a "pen licence" is used in schools to encourage children to make their writing legible and accurate enough to not be required to use a pencil, permission to use a GUI would only be given once a child knows how to do the following using UNIX commands: - basic commands (such as text editing, listing the contents of a folder and changing directories) - how to access, use and apply information gained in man pages - basic scripting
That way those inclined to learn more will be provided with the tools to teach themselves, while the others will have some appreciation for how involved computer-related jobs can be.
Only problem is the teachers themselves would have to know all of the above and then possibly even more to ensure kids are actually being encouraged to think rather than 'press buttons, receive useful tool that 99% of the class won't remember after the bell rings for lunch, oh that doesn't work anymore due to a new version of [whatever]? Nevermind, we might look into it another day'.
I'd not heard of that before. That's an interesting take - Pehaps a few weeks of switching-code in, then punching holes into cards, then Command Line... effectively, much as an embryo retraces the history, a complete, albeit tiny / one-month foundation course might well spark the imagination. Good call, Froggy!
"Just one best-selling game series, Tomb Raider made by British company Eidos has had sales of over 35 million"
ReplyDeleteLittle bit disingenuous, that - I mean, Rockstar might be a US company but their Edinburgh studio (I thought it was Dundee, but wikipedia says Edi) was responsible for Grand Theft Auto, among others.
Anyway, I think this misses the point. Sure, previous generations had to learn how to code because they could only afford basic hardware - but it takes an appreciation of gameplay and narrative to create a good game, not a knowledge of Perl. Or whatever. It's a teaching problem, not a hardware one. If it's a problem at all, which I doubt. I mean, we teach millions of people to drive but we don't fret over the fact that this doesn't lead to more people becoming mechanics.
OK, but knowing how to design new hardware and drivers for said h/w is rarely a skill people are tought at school. (I don't want to make this a British Isles / England thing. I'm thinking UK PLC).
ReplyDeleteWhile it is true that there's much more diversity in skills (in the past, the games programmer had to know low level graphics, game-play, sound, music, art work etc whereas nowadays huge teams of people with disparate skills each do their bit), there's still a need to understand h/w at a very low level, if only to make *better* stuff without the limitations of current h/w (remember, this is concentration on h/w YET to be developed by the kids who are starting primary school now). Sure, you could sit back and wait to find out what other country offers-up for you to use - but what of the fairly huge market of graphics/sound/motherboard/silicon which we already have (Creative, NVida, Inmos (who?)!)
Sure, games is one market, but h/w, firmware, devices and their drivers... there are skills that probably can't be tought - you have to have an appreciation of them on another level. A whole bunch of other stuff (graphics cards, drivers) are designed in the UK by people who didn't just attend lectures and do their course-work, they had to mess around in the dirt to gain them skills. My courses were made up of folk from two very easily identifiable sets - Those going into banking (Databases, SQL, COBOL!), some going into Science (FORTRAN), and a bunch more turned on by the stuff that makes the rest possible (6502, 68000, ARM, occam, Bresenhams line and Circle algorithms). I think this article's concentrating on them.
For example, years ago I worked in a small Surrey town, with some very bright H/w, Firmware, Software designers - many from the local University.
Recently I required some h/w to be developed, so I contacted the Uni to find out if any BSc/PHD students wanted to help ... sadly they now only concentrate on courses for job skills (Banking/Commerce Databases, Perl, web design...) - They do have h/w developers (they're developing some pretty kicking electric automotive products), but they didn't have a course for them skills anymore!
I think it is like "ordinary" literacy - there are those who will only ever read Jane & John books (or the newspaper equivalent The Sun), and there will be those who want to read War and Peace in Russian, or Cicero or Chaucer in the original, or will endlessly debate Salman Rushdie.
ReplyDeleteI take your point, Andrew - I agree that there's no better way of learning how something like computer hardware works than by footling around with it. My concern, I guess, is with the approach taken here to try and motivate kids. In the early days, when I was laboriously transcribing games out of computer magazines, it was possible to create a home-made game which was nearly as good as the professional games around. thus, there was a degree of kudos with your peers. There was a necessity to program in a low-level language to get what you wanted. And that's my point - it's all about what you can achieve, it's about producing something impressive - that's what kids want. That's why I think this raspberry pi thing misses the point - because it only has an input for a keyboard, and an output for a screen. That's fine, but it's very one-dimensional. I'd rather spend the money on a boxload of Arduinos. IMHO, that would give far more opportunities for impressive results, and that's what will hook the kids in. Then they can start to dig deeper on their own.
ReplyDeleteI think see what you (both) mean. Interestingly (and Peter'll back me on this, I'm sure) is that I've always found it more impressive to get a lot out of nothing, rather than something "just" really impressive because no-one else has done it.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost a shame they put a proper processor like the ARM on board the Pi.
My evidence - Elite on BBC Micro - (for pity's sake, it didn't even have a sensible sound generator like the AY-38910), it had a small 8 bit processor and 32K for RAM in total!
When I saw the C64/Atari/Amiga demos & games I thought, "Cool. someone's been bothered to read the manual on the sound and graphics processors" (I wasn't too impressed with Elite's split video-mode screen, nor the "game" but how they squeezed so much out)
The problem is, only people who are truly interested in programming will actually get anything out of it, and the chances are they would have gravitated towards a related career anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think what really needs to be worked on is peoples attitudes towards computers and IT in general. Encouraging kids to develop critical thinking skills while using a computer would be infinitely more useful than learning how to do a powerpoint presentation.
Give that frog a fly! :)
ReplyDeleteHi Froggie - long time, no hear - how's it going?
ReplyDeleteNo, I think the split screen partof Elite was prettydamn impressive, but I think the neat algorithms to ensure consistency in naming and ecosystems in the different galaxies in Elite were damn clever.
ReplyDeleteMeh, "just" and Timer IRQ flipping between register settings (I think the video controller only had 16 registers, and not all of the values changed). (OK, the timing was a bit clever ;) - oh, and arranging 2 sets of drawing algos specific to each screenmem region) - Now, if they'd split the screen verically, I'd havebeen impressed :)
ReplyDeleteYes, like using the MOS ROM's contents as a pseudo-random number generator (for the info about the ecosys).
Anyhoo, like I said, not the game... the concepts, and making people think "How the hell did they do that?" Does technical kudos stand for much these days?
Tech cred only stands for much when the people observing know that whatever it is you did took so much effort. Then again, they usually already know your value already, so you don't particularly need to score points with them in the first place - you know what you're doing and they know you know what you're doing.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy making your sibling/relative/godson say 'wow' by displaying a message saying 'hello, world' or making a game of snake for them to play because the last version they downloaded contained a virus. The hard bit is devising and coding an elegant solution to a complex problem that the veterans can't be bothered recoding themselves (then not break anything that was dependant on whatever kludges were implemented in the first place)...
But when you get to that point, you don't particularly need the pat on the back, you're just satisfied the problem has been given the correct solution (and you haven't become depressed despite realising the original solution was in FORTRAN 77 and you were only recently given approval to move to FORTRAN 90 and even then you got growled at if you declared an integer variable with something not starting with the letters I, J, K, L, M or N and you're very much aware this would be written considerably better in another language).
Froggy, I've missed you! :)
ReplyDeleteI think the art was to make something do what it wasn't designed to do.... and do it really well. The "hacker" site I frequent tend to bend stuff (e.g. make Roomba and a SpeakNspell combination that apologies when it's bumped into something when it's cleaning a room. I'd prefer it if it sang a jolly tune and watered the plants too.) - e.g. from yesterday, make a digital storage scope display a programmable pattern - BIG WHOOP! -And, BTW, if someone wrote an obfuscated C program which interpreted FORTRAN, that'd do!
Froggie, I'm very disappointed - you sound like you're getting old and cynical.
ReplyDelete(A thought occurred to me earlier - My attitude is somewhat akin to some debate going on in the UK at the mo - A veteran TV celeb, Bruce Forsythe (sp) beloved by millions has just been recognised in the Queens Birthday honours list -He got a CBE, I think. Apparently people have been putting his name forward for years, and nothing till now - I think he's in his 70's. - Well, it turns out that the powers-that-be have been avoiding Honours from being a popularity competition. School teachers, Cafe/Restaurant waiters/waitresses get them, too. Yeah, Sure Brucie's popular. Millions love him. That's his job, and he'd been well paid for it too. No What's worthy of recognition is something out of the ordinary... )
ReplyDeleteAlthough [Jack] just graduated High School and doesn’t have much experience with electronics, that didn’t stop him from building the DUO Adept, a homebrew computer built entirely out of TTL logic chips.
ReplyDeleteThe DUO Adept has 64k of memory, 6K of which is dedicated to the video ram that outputs a 240×208 black and white image onto a TV. Bootstrapping the computer to it’s current state was quite a challenge, as an entire OS was put into th system one bit at a time though DIP switches. After the OS was written to the computer, [Jack] was able to connect a keyboard and started programming. [Jack] programmed a hex editor and a few games of his own design. If all that wasn’t impressive enough, [Jack] also programmed an assembly compiler and emulator for his homebrew system....
Maybe the kids just need to appreciate the amount of time and dedication it takes to make their usage of the computer easier. Encourage classrooms to develop a 'GUI Licence'. Much like a "pen licence" is used in schools to encourage children to make their writing legible and accurate enough to not be required to use a pencil, permission to use a GUI would only be given once a child knows how to do the following using UNIX commands:
ReplyDelete- basic commands (such as text editing, listing the contents of a folder and changing directories)
- how to access, use and apply information gained in man pages
- basic scripting
That way those inclined to learn more will be provided with the tools to teach themselves, while the others will have some appreciation for how involved computer-related jobs can be.
Only problem is the teachers themselves would have to know all of the above and then possibly even more to ensure kids are actually being encouraged to think rather than 'press buttons, receive useful tool that 99% of the class won't remember after the bell rings for lunch, oh that doesn't work anymore due to a new version of [whatever]? Nevermind, we might look into it another day'.
I'd not heard of that before.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting take - Pehaps a few weeks of switching-code in, then punching holes into cards, then Command Line... effectively, much as an embryo retraces the history, a complete, albeit tiny / one-month foundation course might well spark the imagination. Good call, Froggy!
It's called "toggling-in", young 'un.
ReplyDeleteBTDT.
You're quite right... I did miss the birth of electrons
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15240207
ReplyDeleteInteresting coverage on News Night last night
http://hackaday.com/2011/11/26/this-dongle-makes-any-screen-an-android-device/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15916677
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15747061
ReplyDeleteCheap, tiny computer design to encourage coding for kids
ReplyDeleteRaspberry Pi faces challenge from Android-based rivals
ReplyDeleteGoogle pumps cash into UK classrooms, will buy Arduino, Raspberry Pi sets for kids
ReplyDeleteGoogle funds computer teachers and Raspberry Pis in England
Why the Scientist Stereotype is Bad for Everyone, Especially Kids
ReplyDeleteFun with coding
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=SpN_WXUxWx0
ReplyDeletehttp://elite.frontier.co.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox6seIm6o3c&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwyzQyky1j4&feature=related
Excellent collection of BBC Micro H/w / S/w / Architecture talks
ReplyDeletehttp://hackaday.com/2012/08/31/what-you-can-do-when-a-raspberry-pi-teams-up-with-an-arduino/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackaday%2FLgoM+%28Hack+a+Day%29
ReplyDelete