Re: The integral type 'byte' (was Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?)

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