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The BBC Micro is crap

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  The BBC Micro is crap deKay <andyk@lofi-gaming.org.uk> - 2019-11-18 16:43 +0000
    Re: The BBC Micro is crap Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2019-11-18 19:34 +0000
    Re: The BBC Micro is crap Guesser <alistair@zxnet.co.uk> - 2019-11-18 19:56 +0000
      Re: The BBC Micro is crap deKay <andyk@lofi-gaming.org.uk> - 2019-11-19 11:31 +0000
        Re: The BBC Micro is crap Steve Drain <steve@kappa.me.uk> - 2019-11-20 10:17 +0000
          Re: The BBC Micro is crap deKay <andyk@lofi-gaming.org.uk> - 2019-11-20 14:05 +0000
            Re: The BBC Micro is crap Duncan Snowden <duncan_s@talktalk.net> - 2019-11-20 15:15 +0000
              Re: The BBC Micro is crap "Chris" <chris.usenet@mail-filter.com> - 2019-12-30 00:30 +0000
                Re: The BBC Micro is crap Lee Osborne <losborne74@gmail.com> - 2020-01-16 04:04 -0800

#4791 — The BBC Micro is crap

lolz

No, I'm not crossposting this. I've been reading some 1982 issues of Acorn
User and there's an article in one about which is best, the BBC Micro or the
Spectrum. They came to the conclusion that for "work", the answer is the BBC,
with "the Spectrum best left for the kids".

There's also a lot of rebuking Uncle Clive's fake news in the various letter
and news pages. One thing I saw that was interesting, is that Sinclair offered
schools a free ZX Printer for every Spectrum schools bought, and Acorn offered
"free Econet" for the BBC. The latter was seen as "far more likely to be
useful in the future" - yeah, but no but.

deKay
-- 
 Lofi Gaming - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk
 Gaming Diary - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/diary
 Blog - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/blog     
 My computer runs at 3.5MHz and I'm proud of that

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#4792

On 18/11/2019 16:43, deKay wrote:

> There's also a lot of rebuking Uncle Clive's fake news in the various letter
> and news pages. One thing I saw that was interesting, is that Sinclair offered
> schools a free ZX Printer for every Spectrum schools bought, and Acorn offered
> "free Econet" for the BBC. The latter was seen as "far more likely to be
> useful in the future" - yeah, but no but.

Well, to be fair, I learned a lot more about networking from Econet than 
I did about printers from the ZX Printer.

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#4793

On 18/11/2019 16:43, deKay wrote:
> There's also a lot of rebuking Uncle Clive's fake news in the various letter
> and news pages. One thing I saw that was interesting, is that Sinclair offered
> schools a free ZX Printer for every Spectrum schools bought, and Acorn offered
> "free Econet" for the BBC. The latter was seen as "far more likely to be
> useful in the future" - yeah, but no but.

With Econet the school could buy an actual printer and and hook it up to 
one of their Beebs. I love the ingenuity of the ZX Printer but it's not 
actually *useful*. Plus they'd have to buy the expensive paper.

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#4794

Soni tempori elseu romani yeof helsforo nisson ol sefini ill des Mon, 18 Nov
2019 19:56:50 +0000, sefini jorgo geanyet des mani yeof do comp.sys.sinclair,
yawatina tan reek esk Guesser <alistair@zxnet.co.uk> fornis do marikano es
bono tan el:

>On 18/11/2019 16:43, deKay wrote:
>> There's also a lot of rebuking Uncle Clive's fake news in the various letter
>> and news pages. One thing I saw that was interesting, is that Sinclair offered
>> schools a free ZX Printer for every Spectrum schools bought, and Acorn offered
>> "free Econet" for the BBC. The latter was seen as "far more likely to be
>> useful in the future" - yeah, but no but.
>
>With Econet the school could buy an actual printer and and hook it up to 
>one of their Beebs. I love the ingenuity of the ZX Printer but it's not 
>actually *useful*. Plus they'd have to buy the expensive paper.

This is true, but Econet for anything else wasn't of any use to schools.
Colleges and universities, perhaps. I've been in schools pretty much all my
life and only know of one where Econet ever happened and that was never used
as when they connected it up it was used solely to remotely call the teacher a
dick.

Networking was important, but Econet itself was effectively a dead end and it
was too early on, especially when the Beebs were used for just 1) Granny's
Garden, and 2) Logo. Printers were more useful at the time, regardless of
paper type. Problem was, of course, no schools bought Spectrums in the end so
both offers were ignored.

deKay
-- 
 Lofi Gaming - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk
 Gaming Diary - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/diary
 Blog - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/blog     
 My computer runs at 3.5MHz and I'm proud of that

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#4795

OK. I'll bite. ;-)

> Econet for anything else wasn't of any use to schools.

So myself and colleagues were living in a dream for a decade.

> I've been in schools pretty much all my life and only know of one 
> where Econet ever happened and that was never used

Your ignorance of what was actually happening is staggering, then.

> as when they connected it up it was used solely to remotely call the 
> teacher a dick.

Thousands of pupils and never any abuse. It is like all networks, it
needs managing.

> Networking was important, but Econet itself was effectively a dead 
> end

Well, yes, but when Ethernet systems were horrendously expensive and
tricky to set up with co-ax cabling, Econet was very effective, cheap
and simple.

> the Beebs were used for just 1) Granny's Garden, and 2) Logo.

Ignorance is bliss.

> no schools bought Spectrums

Fewer, true, but they were used and networked, sort of. However, they
soon became too limiting, whereas the Beeb was still very useful into
the mid 90s.

My presence here should tell you that I am a Spectrum devotee, but my
professional life was centered around Acorn machines.

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#4796

Soni tempori elseu romani yeof helsforo nisson ol sefini ill des Wed, 20 Nov
2019 10:17:08 +0000, sefini jorgo geanyet des mani yeof do comp.sys.sinclair,
yawatina tan reek esk Steve Drain <steve@kappa.me.uk> fornis do marikano es
bono tan el:

>OK. I'll bite. ;-)
>
>> Econet for anything else wasn't of any use to schools.
>
>So myself and colleagues were living in a dream for a decade.

In general. I've helped a large number of schools get rid of their old kit,
and only one had any Econet stuff. What did you use it for?

>> I've been in schools pretty much all my life and only know of one 
>> where Econet ever happened and that was never used
>
>Your ignorance of what was actually happening is staggering, then.
>
>> as when they connected it up it was used solely to remotely call the 
>> teacher a dick.
>
>Thousands of pupils and never any abuse. It is like all networks, it
>needs managing.

We definitely managed to call the teacher a dick ;)

To be fair, his name was actually Dick.

>> Networking was important, but Econet itself was effectively a dead 
>> end
>
>Well, yes, but when Ethernet systems were horrendously expensive and
>tricky to set up with co-ax cabling, Econet was very effective, cheap
>and simple.

True, but what use was it in school? Genuine question. What was it actually
used for? Lucky schools had maybe one BBC per room, perhaps maybe only a
handful across the whole school. My own primary had two, one in a "learning
room" and one on a trolley. Another primary I went to had a "computer room"
with four BBCs in it but none elsewhere. Not much scope to network them.

>> the Beebs were used for just 1) Granny's Garden, and 2) Logo.
>
>Ignorance is bliss.

We had Pendown, but no printer, so it was a bit useless. Another school did
use it for a F1 management maths "game" (which still exists and is used every
year by Jaguar, albeit on a PC now), and sometimes the kids would bring
Chuckie Egg or Dare Devil Denis in on disc.

Of course, some of us went off curriculum and wrote programs on them, and
sometimes we'd get something like A Town Like Wattville or something, but
nothing that ever used Econet. Perhaps in FE and HE things were different,
with computing courses and such, but at primary school it was Granny's Garden
all the way, and at high school it was a few science things and LOGO. I still
have a cupboard with all the software in and there's nothing that would use a
network.

Things changed very much with the Archimedes machines where there was use in
networking (mainly for printing).

>> no schools bought Spectrums
>
>Fewer, true, but they were used and networked, sort of. However, they
>soon became too limiting, whereas the Beeb was still very useful into
>the mid 90s.

And later. School I'm at now only got rid of their last BBC Micro (which ran
some sensor and graphing software) in about 2010. And that was only because of
smoke damage after a fire.

That said, one of my primaries bought one Spectrum and the head's suggestion
to my parents based on how I got on with it in school is the reason I got a
Spectrum in the first place.


deKay
-- 
 Lofi Gaming - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk
 Gaming Diary - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/diary
 Blog - http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/blog     
 My computer runs at 3.5MHz and I'm proud of that

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#4797

On Wed, 20 Nov 2019 14:05:11 +0000
deKay <andyk@lofi-gaming.org.uk> wrote:

> True, but what use was it in school? Genuine question. What was it
> actually used for? Lucky schools had maybe one BBC per room, perhaps
> maybe only a handful across the whole school. My own primary had two,
> one in a "learning room" and one on a trolley. Another primary I went
> to had a "computer room" with four BBCs in it but none elsewhere. Not
> much scope to network them.

My experience is a lot more limited, but I have to say that the school
I went to, being a bit posh, had 12-15 BBCs in one room (and a few more
dotted about the place), but no Econet.

And the only time I ever recall using a computer in an actual *class*
(as opposed to dicking around on them at lunchtime) was playing a
resource management game in Geography. On a Tatung Einstein, of all
things.

(We had quite a few Commodore PETs, too. I was about to say I'd
love to know what happened to those, but on reflection I'm not sure I
do. Probably ended up in a skip.)

-- 
Duncan Snowden.

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#4804

On Wed, 20 Nov 2019 15:15:00 +0000 da kidz on comp.sys.sinclair were rappin'
to MC Duncan Snowden:

> On Wed, 20 Nov 2019 14:05:11 +0000
> deKay <andyk@lofi-gaming.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> > True, but what use was it in school? Genuine question. What was it
> > actually used for? Lucky schools had maybe one BBC per room, perhaps
> > maybe only a handful across the whole school. My own primary had two,
> > one in a "learning room" and one on a trolley. Another primary I went
> > to had a "computer room" with four BBCs in it but none elsewhere. Not
> > much scope to network them.
> 
> My experience is a lot more limited, but I have to say that the school
> I went to, being a bit posh, had 12-15 BBCs in one room (and a few more
> dotted about the place), but no Econet.

My junior school had one BBC Micro with a printer.  There was a second
one (which may have had a printer, not sure) in the Infant bit of the
school, which was conveniently located, if my memory serves me
correctly, in the corridor linking the junior and infant parts of the
school.

Secondary school had loads of BBC Micros, which quite quickly were
mostly replaced with Acorn Archimedes and then RISC PCs.  The teacher
in charge of IT was an Acorn fan.  He left the same year as me as the
school was apparently switching over to using PCs (when I left there
were about three in the entire school, two of which were in the
library).  We had loads of Acorns but no Econet.  The school obviously
didn't see any need for it and spent the budget on hard drives, extra
memory, printers, and newer/more computers.

> (We had quite a few Commodore PETs, too. I was about to say I'd
> love to know what happened to those, but on reflection I'm not sure I
> do. Probably ended up in a skip.)

Probably best not to know.  We had an entire cupboard of old
computers, including an RM380Z, a BBC Micro (one of the older or
not as good ones) and a ZX81.  We had them all set up in the study
room for a while for some reason, but I honestly can't remember what
else was there.  The ZX81 wasn't, because the last I saw of that was
it being waved around in assembly and then it mysteriously was never
seen again.

I suspect all these ended up in a skip along with all the Acorns. 
Hopefully not though.

Chris


-- 
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+---------------------------------------------+
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DISCLAIMER: I may be making all this stuff up again.

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#4810

I started secondary school in 1985, and we had a classroom with 16 Beebs in it, all Econet linked, and used to allow us to run a range of software. We were also able to save our own work on it.

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