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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The integral type 'byte' (was Re: Suggested method for returning
 a string from a C program?)
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:09:47 +0100
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On 26.03.2025 17:50, David Brown wrote:
> On 26/03/2025 15:08, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 26.03.2025 11:29, David Brown wrote:
>>>
>>> In the UK at least, home computers were wildly popular from the start of
>>> the 1980's, when they became much cheaper, had usable BASIC languages,
>>> and a wide supply of games.  DOS and CP/M systems were pretty much
>>> business only - home computers hugely outnumbered such systems.
>>> Virtually all home computers were 8-bit - though most users would have
>>> little knowledge of that.
>>
>> I basically agree. Only that those geeks and nerds who privately
>> bought such computer systems here were mostly informed about the
>> technical details.
> 
> That would, I think, apply to the technically-minded adults who bought
> early computers themselves - rather than the kids whose parents bought
> them.

Actually, as to my observations, the "parents" were a negligible
community regarding use of computers, it were mostly folks of
ages 16-30 (back these days and in our country). Nerds or geeks,
as to a characterization. The social situation is very different
nowadays.

> 
>>
>> (Ah, now I remember the system name I forgot in a previous post;
>> it was a "Schneider" PC with CPM. And some toy called Sinclair ZX
>> or so.)
> 
> The Sinclair computers (ZX81, ZX Spectrum) launched a generation of
> programmers and technically-minded kids in the UK - it was much more
> than a toy.  I learned machine code programming on a Spectrum (along
> with a BBC Micro), as well as some Forth, C, Pascal and Logo, in
> addition to the built-in BASIC.

Oh, please, don't get me wrong. Of course you could do a lot of
geeky stuff with those devices and learn a lot about that (then
"new") technology. The "toy" character as I named it I perceived
from the lousy hardware (membrane keyboard, TV as display, etc. -
unless I am confusing things) and also what seems to have been
mostly done with those devices.

On the minus side, if you wanted to learn about IT or CS - we've
got a lot of bad paragons from many of these primitive systems;
OSes like DOS, languages like BASIC, primitive CPU architectures,
and whatnot. (YMMV)

Janis